WHERE 

It* 


HESKRW  PraCHARD 


,.  r- 


Cl)e  Lifitatp 

of  t|)e 

Onlt)er0itp  of  Bottb  Carolina 


^^i&  hoo\i  toa0  pte^enttti 


THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

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ENDOWED  BY  THE 

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UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 
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DATE 
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DATE 
DUE 


RET. 


DEC  1 8 


i,^f^\f  f  f}' 


C-'L    ■' 


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NovTizooe 


UTirrwii 


r'jrrn  No.  513 


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WHERE   BLACK    RULES    WHITE 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2011  with  funding  from 

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WHERE 
BLACK    RULES  WHITE 

A  JOURNEY  ACROSS  AND  ABOUT  HAYTI 


BY 
HESKETH    PRICHARD 

Joint  author  of  "A   Modern   Mercenary" 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

^53"^57  Fifth  Avenue 

I  goo 


Printed  at  the  Motley  Press,  IS,  Eldon  Street,  London,  E.G. 


4 

en 


AUTHOR'S    NOTE 


For  the  use  of  some  of  the  illustrations  in  this  volume 
I  am  indebted  to  the  courtesy  of  Dr.  Rauch  of  Port-au-Prince, 
Hayti.  Owing  to  my  departure  on  an  expedition  to  Pata- 
gonia, organized  by  "  T/w  Daily  Express'' ,  I  am  unable  to 
correct  the  final  proof-sheets  of  this  book,  and  must  therefore 
beg  my  readers'  indulgence  should  any  inaccuracies  have 
crept  into  the   text. 

H.  P. 


CONTENTS 

Page 

CHAPTER        I.    First  Impressions  of  the  Black  Republic  i 

„                II,    The  High  Road  of  Hayti 13 

„              III.    The  Haytian  General 39 

„              IV.    Vaudoux  Worship  and  Sacrifice   ...  74 

„               V.    The  Haytian  Navy 102 

„              VI.    Across  Hayti' iii 

„            VII.    Into  San  Domingo 129 

„           VIII.    Haytian  Police,  Prisons  and  Hospitals  147 

„              IX.    A  living  city  within  a  dead  one    .    .    .  i6g 

„               X.    The  Citadel  of  the  Black  Napoleon   .  183 

„              XL    Justice  and  the  Status  of  the  White  .  210 

„            XII.    The  Haytian  Press 225 

„           XIII.    The  Haytian  People  as  I  knew  them   .  232 

„           XIV.    Hayti  the  Puff-ball 267 

„             XV.    Can  the  Negro  rule  Himself?  ....  277 

Index 2S5 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Page 

A  Haytian  Scene {Frontispiece)  — 

Bananar  at  Jacmel 3 

A  Funeral 9 

My  Guide 15 

Market-place,  Port-au-Prince 23 

Six  o'clock  Reveille  in  the  Streets  of  Port-au-Prince     .  29 

Palms  on  the  way  to  Bizotou 35 

Some  Generals 41 

A  General's  evening  Ride 49 

The  March  Past 57 

On  Parade 65 

About  to  be  reviewed 71 

The  Wharf  at  Port-au-Prince 107 

Street  Scene  in  Petit  Goave 113 

Washerwomen 119 

A  Haytian  Highway 133 

Native  Hut  on  the  way  to  San  Domingo  .......  137 

Natives 141 

Military  Arrondissement 149 

EcoLE  Centrale 165 

Port-au-Prince 175 

The  Town  of  Millot Facing  185 

Palace  of  Sans-Souci  at  Millot „  190 

Interior  of  the  Castle  of  La  Ferriere      ....        „  195 

Bel-air 201 

The  Palace  of  the  President , 213 

On  a  journey 235 

Typical  Peasantry 239 

In  a  Haytian  Forest 247 

Logwood 259 


WHERE  BLACK   RULES   WHITE. 


CHAPTER    I. 

FIRST    IMPRESSIONS    OF    THE   BLACK   REPUBLIC. 

The  liner  was  hove  to,  awaiting  daylight.  Across  the 
leaden  swell  Hayti  lay  hazy  and  of  a  soft  grey,  her  deli- 
cate mountain  crests  cut  sharply  out  against  the  brighten- 
ing sky.  Soon  the  east  was  alive  and  glowing  in  deep 
orange  and  deeper  red  patched  with  livid  green,  a  bar  of 
angry  colour  shut  in  between  the  sea  and  a  jagged  lid  of 
cloud.  Four  bells  rang  forward,  and  upon  the  stroke  we 
were  under  way  and  steaming  slowly  past  the  dim  dead 
shores.  Between  us  and  the  distant  heights  ran  a  low 
bluff,  bristling  with  scrub. 

No    villages    were    visible,    but    here    and    there,  through 

glasses,    we    could    discern    a    brownish   speck  which  might 

have  been  a  solitary  hut,  but  these  did  not  break  the  sense 

of   desolation.     Nothing    seemed    alive    save   the  dawn  and 

I 


2  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

a  clean,  sweet  wind  that  blew  graciously  cool  after  the 
sweltering  heats  of  the  night. 

Thus  it  was  that  in  November  of  last  year  (1899)  I  saw 
Hayti  for  the  second  time.  Eighteen  months  had  elapsed 
since  I  first  steamed  along  under  the  same  shores,  and 
Hayti  had  lost  none  of  her  mystery  and  fascination.  Since 
the  wholesale  massacre  of  the  whites  by  order  of  General 
Dessalines,  which  followed  immediately  upon  the  procla- 
mation of  the  Act  of  Independence  in  1 804,  Hayti  has  been 
a  sealed  land.  Very  little  could  be  told  about  her ;  for 
very  little  was  known.  Threaded  in  the  circle  of  a  hun- 
dred civiHsed  isles,  she  alone  has  drawn  a  veil  between 
herself  and  the  rest  of  mankind. 

A  few  scores  of  white  men  live  in  her  coast  towns,  but 
of  the  interior  even  they  can  tell  you  practically  nothing. 
The  Black  Republic,  set  between  her  tropical  seas  and 
virgin  mountain-peaks,  keeps  her  secrets  well. 

In  spite  of  endless  inquiries,  until  I  actually  landed  in  the 
island,  I  could  gather  no  definite  details.  The  ship  I  was 
travelling  in  passed  seven  times  a  year  along  the  southern 
coast  to  drop  the  mails  at  the  principal  port  of  Jacmel, 
but  although  many  people  on  board  had  lived  half  their 
lives  on  the  neighbouring  islands,  I  could  glean  no  inform- 
ation respecting  Hayti.  I  was  vaguely  told  that  the  place 
was  unhealthy,  more  unhealthy  than  Colon,  and  even  more 
abnormally    dirty,    and    that    men  were  rather  more  apt  to 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  THE  BLACK  REPUBLIC.       3 

die  suddenly  there  than  elsewhere  in  the  tropics.  Even 
the  steamer  seemed  to  hold  herself  aloof.  It  is  her  custom 
to  lie  well  out  in  the  roadstead  of  Jacmel,  and  she  only- 
waits  for  the  return  of  the  mail  boat  before  putting  to  sea 
again. 


BANANAR   AT  JACMEL. 


There  were  of  course  various  strange  rumours  drifting 
about,  stories  that  had  oozed  out  from  the  guarded  silence 
shrouding  those  dark-green  shores,  stories  of  snake-worship, 
and  poisonings,  human  sacrifice  and  cannibalism.  Hayti 
appeared  to  be  a  stage  with  the  curtain  down, — all  the 
world   knew  that  the  dramas  of  life  and  death  were  bein"; 


4  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

played  out  over  and  over  again  behind  that  curtain, 
but  with  what  curious  or  horrible  variations  from  the 
ordinary  tenor  of  human  existence  none  could  guess.  I 
had  read  one  or  two  books  about  the  place,  notably  that 
by  Sir  Spencer  St.  John,  who  was  British  Minister  in 
Hayti  for  a  considerable  period,  but  even  his  book  was 
some  years  old. 

Hayti  the  Mysterious  1  Her  appeal  to  the  imagination 
is  inevitable.  Ships  from  Europe  and  America  move  per- 
petually round  and  along  her  coasts  and  call  at  her  open 
ports,  ocean  cables  link  her  to  the  rest  of  the  globe,  but 
for  all  these  things,  five  miles  inland  you  lose  touch  with 
civilisation,  with  the  world. 

From  the  sea,  her  mountains,  bearded  with  dark  forests 
up  to  their  wrinkled  brows,  scowl  at  you.  To  deny  that 
she  is  picturesque  is  impossible ;  to  do  so  would  be  to 
acknowledge  a  sheer  lack  of  imagination. 

Mile  after  mile  we  slid  along  the  coast  cliff,  until  the 
fjord-like  bay  turned  in  upon  itself,  and  there  was  the  town 
of  Jacmel  lying  inside  its  belt  of  sand. 

Jacmel  from  the  sea  is  not  unlike  towns  in  the  Colombian 
Republic  or  on  the  Pacific  coast.  The  same  white  houses, 
nestling  in  vivid  foliage,  give  it  the  same  false  air  of  coolness. 

Five  minutes  later  the  quarter-boat  was  shouldering  her 
way  shorewards  across  the  swell  which  broke  in  foam  almost 
at  the  foot  of  the  palms. 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  THE  BLACK  REPUBLIC.       5 

We  shot  past  the  reefs,  and  I  scrambled  on  to  the  dilap- 
idated landing-stage  among  the  crowd  of  negroes, — a  crowd 
which  as  to  colour  represented  every  shade  of  full-bodied 
black.  As  to  dress,  there  were  degrees  from  gold  lace 
down  to  the  simplicity  of  a  cloth  with  a  hole  in  the  middle 
for  the  wearer's  head,  supplemented  by  ragged  trousers. 
Most  of  them  carried  heavy  jointed  clubs.  The  boat  that 
had  landed  me  put  oft';  I  saw  the  rowers  slide  into  their 
stroke ;  I  waited  till  they  reached  the  shadow  of  the 
steamer,  the  gangway  was  raised,  the  boat  swung  inboard, 
and  the  liner  dived  away  over  the  glinting  sea.  Then  I 
turned,  stepped  from  the  boarding,  and  was  on  Haytian  earth. 

I  do  not  know  precisely  what  I  had  expected,  but  I  do 
know  that  it  was  not  at  all  like  the  reality. 

Almost  straight  before  me  was  a  narrow  street,  lined 
with  irregular  buildings,  something  like  a  street  of  old 
London  as  you  see  it  in  pictures,  save  that  the  overhanging 
first  floors  were  wooden  piazzas. 

I  walked  slowly  along,  taking  the  measure  of  things.  It 
was  a  dirty  street,  albeit  the  chief  one  of  the  chief  town  of 
southern  Hayti,  and  the  sun  was  scalding.  The  place  was 
also  acrush  with  human  beings  of  African  race  and  their 
donkeys.  A  lean  dog  or  two  basked  in  the  alleys.  There 
were  shops,  open  cavernous  places,  with  the  stock-in-trade 
of  the  proprietor  depending  from  ropes  round  the  walls. 
Pavement  or  foot-path  there  was  none. 


6  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

The  piazzas,  jutting  from  the  upper  floors  of  the  ungainly 
houses,  were  supported  by  pillars  of  wood  driven  into  the 
earth;  but  walking  under  them  in  the  shadow  was  an 
athletic  exercise  of  four-foot  leaps  up  and  down,  for  some 
of  the  domiciles  possessed  brick  thresholds  leading  to  the 
supports,  while  others  had  none.  There  were  many  empty 
houses  with  smashed  shutters,  fire-scarred  shells  which 
seemed  all  the  emptier  for  the  pitiless  sunlight.  In  Hayti 
they  always  start  a  revolution  by  firing  the  town. 

I  turned  on  the  thought  to  observe  the  negroes  in  their 
own  preserve,  where  they  may  "  revolute "  as  they  like. 
Most  of  them  had  dropped  their  work  or  business  to  look 
at  me.  Through  the  dust  and  glare  wizened  donkeys  trotted, 
laden  with  huge  bundles  of  guinea-grass,  negresses  hawked 
about  baskets  of  bananas  and  mangoes,  the  street  was  full 
of  men  and  women,  screaming,  gesticulating,  and  shouting. 
A  bareheaded  negro  was  blowing  a  tin  trumpet  in  long, 
ringing  blasts.     The  din  was  incredible. 

There  were  women  carrying  loads  upon  their  heads ;  one 
was  half-running  with  a  bottle  balanced  on  a  yellow  bandana 
tied  round  her  brows.  Most  of  them  were  dressed  in  white, 
short-kilted  to  the  knee,  and  nearly  all  wore  the  turban 
handkerchief.  As  for  the  men,  some  had  coats,  some  only 
trousers,  and  some,  more  ragged  than  the  rest,  affected  kepis 
with  red  bands.    These  last  I  discovered  later  were  policemen. 

No   carriages    were  to  be  seen,  not  even  a  broken-down 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  THE  BLACK  REPUBLIC.       7 

West  Indian  buggy.  It  was  my  first  impression  of  the  land 
where  Black  rules  White.  The  bawl  and  clatter  of  voices, 
the  jostling  crowd,  the  scream  of  an  angry  man  in  the  hot 
street,  the  few  cool  stores  with  their  proprietors  seated  on 
chairs  in  the  doorways,  the  ungainly  wooden  houses  with 
their  sprawling  side-posts,  the  sun,  the  smell,  the  dirt : — 
this  was  Hayti. 

The  British  Consular  Agent,  to  whom  I  had  brought  a 
letter  of  introduction,  was  most  kind,  and  oftered  to  put  me 
up  for  the  night,  a  proposal  which  I  was  only  too  glad  to 
accept.  Failing  this  hospitaHty  I  should  have  been  obliged 
to  bivouac  in  the  open;  for  Jacmel,  though  the  principal 
port  in  southern  Hayti,  does  not  boast  either  hotel  or  rest- 
house  where  one  could  hope  for  a  night's  shelter. 

Half  an  hour  later,  as  I  sat  at  peace  in  the  Consular 
office,  near  the  door  for  the  sake  of  air,  a  sudden  clamour 
of  voices  arose  outside.  Then  a  thudding  noise, — the  gath- 
ering of  a  bare-footed  crowd.  We  turned  out  into  the 
scorching  sun  to  where,  in  the  centre  of  the  arid  waterside 
space,  a  fight  was  in  progress.  A  policeman,  buttoned  up 
in  a  blue  linen  uniform  like  a  butcher-boy's  coat,  only 
double-breasted,  was  struggling  with  a  big-headed  negro. 
The  captive  had  hold  of  his  captor's  cocomacaque  club, 
and  the  pair  swung  to  and  fro  in  a  heated  struggle. 

The  big-headed  negro  was  already  wresting  away  the 
weapon  when  two  other  policemen  raced  up.     Smash  went 


8  WHRRE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

a  cocomacaquc  on  the  big,  stooping  head,  and  a  bubble  of 
red  blood  rose  through  the  short  fuzz.  A  bellow  of  excite- 
ment went  up  from  the  bystanders.  The  prisoner  turned 
like  a  dazed  bull  for  a  moment,  then  he  broke  free  and 
fled  down  the  street. 

Experience  soon  taught  me  that  similar  scenes  were  by 
no  means  uncommon:  I  also  learnt  to  sympathise  with  the 
frantic  resistance  of  the  prisoners. 

The  business  in  Jacmel  is  almost  entirely  in  the  hands 
of  the  small  foreign  element.  The  RepubUcan  Government 
distrusts  and  dislikes  the  outlander,  but  it  cannot  get  on 
without  him.  On  sufferance  therefore  he  remains,  but  any 
projects  as  to  opening  up  the  country,  prospecting  or 
obtaining  concessions,  are  blocked  in  one  way  or  another. 
Either  the  Government  plants  its  foot  firmly  and  refuses 
permission  point-blank,  or  if  expediency  suggests  another 
course,  negotiations  are  begun,  which  are  later  on  so 
craftily  manipulated  that  the  white  man  finds  himself  finally 
left    in    the    lurch,    saddled  with  a  hopelessly  bad  bargain. 

Again  no  foreigner  can  legally  own  land  in  the  island, 
but  so  far  as  private  houses  in  the  coast  towns  are  concerned, 
this  law  has  been  circumvented  at  various  times. 

There  are  in  the  town  and  district  about  500  potential 
soldiers,  of  whom  no  fewer  than  200  are  generals.  A 
general,  as  he  is  known  in  Hayti,  must  be  spelt  with  a  big 
G.      The    general   commanding  this  province  is  one  of  the 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  THE  BLACK  REPUBLIC,     ii 

strong  men  of  the  country.  He  can  neither  read  nor  write, 
and  belongs  to  the  lowest  strata,  yet  he  was  one  of  the 
great  forces  in  the  last  revolution.  General  Johannis  Meri- 
sier  cannot  sign  documents,  but  by  way  of  making  his  mark 
he  adds  the  impress  of  his  signet  ring.  What  one  man 
writes  for  him  he  gets  another  man  to  read,  thus  securing 
himself  against  deception.  In  person  he  is  of  the  ultra- 
negro  type,  and  in  his  hands  lies  the  power  of  life  and  death. 

Towards  evening  I  went  for  a  ride  about  the  surrounding 
country ;  there  were  some  pretty-looking  villas  half  hidden 
in  green  dotted  about  the  outskirts  of  the  town.  Returning 
I  passed  by  the  arsenal  under  the  walls  of  which  public 
executions  take  place.  Not  so  long  ago  two  criminals,  a 
man  and  a  boy  of  fourteen  (the  latter  had  split  open  the 
paternal  skull  with  a  hatchet)  were  condemned  to  be  shot. 
Upon  the  moment  of  firing  a  Roman  Catholic  priest  went 
up  to  the  boy  and  asked  him  if  he  repented  of  his  crime. 
The  boy  said  "No"  — he  would  do  it  again  if  he  had  the 
chance. 

"If  you  repent  you  will  be  reprieved." 

"I  do  not  repent." 

The  priest  withdrew,  and  the  twenty  assorted  firearms 
spoke.  The  man  fell  upon  his  knees,  but  the  boy  was 
untouched.  The  volley  rang  out  again.  No  result.  Another 
volley.  The  bleeding  man  pitched  forward  dead,  but  the 
boy  stood  in   the  aching  sunlight,  still  unhurt. 


12  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE 

A  general  rode  up,  and  borrowing  a  cocomacaque  from  a 
bystander,  beat  the  soldiers  over  the  head  for  their  bungling. 
He  swore  that  unless  the  next  attempt  took  effect,  the 
men  themselves  should  be  shot.  A  second  later,  the  boy 
fell  riddled  with  bullets.  Then  the  drums  beat,  for  the 
justice  of  the  Republic  was  satisfied.  On  this  occasion  it 
was  said  that  the  soldiers  had  pity  on  the  youth  of  the 
boy,  and  purposely  shot  wide,  each  man  hoping  that  his 
comrade's  bullet  might  do  the  deed.  But  it  was  a  cruel 
mercy. 

Darkness  had  come  on  by  the  time  I  recrossed  the 
market-place.  The  scene  was  weird.  Among  the  ruinous 
wooden  booths  a  few  fluttering  flames  cut  into  the  blackness 
of  the  night,  and  from  the  gloom  around  came  the  inde- 
scribable screeching  babble  of  negro  voices.  Here  and  there 
in  the  dim  light  I  saw  pale-palmed  hands  twisting  in 
gesticulation,  or  wide  mouths  that  flashed  white  teeth  over 
slips  of  sugar-cane.  And  so  the  busy  unseen  night-life, 
which    the    dark-skin    loves,   went  on  under  the  dense  sky. 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE   HIGH   ROAD   OF   HAYTI. 

LIBERTY,    EQUALITY,    FRATERNITY. 

Permit  to  the  Citizen  Petit  Saiis-Nom  (Little  Nameless), 
mounted  on  a  red  mule  bearing  the  brand  S.S.,  to  go  to 
Port-au-Prince  as  guide  to  Monsieur  Plesketh  Prichard, 
an  English  subject.  Request  to  the  Authorities,  Civil 
and  Military,  to  render  to  him  any  aid  or  protection  of 
which  he  may  stand  in  need. 

Jacmel,  22  November,  1S99. 

This  passport,  (of  which  the  original  is  in  French)  signed 
and  stamped  with  the  round  bhie  stamp  of  the  Communal 
Council  of  Jacmel,  made  me  free  of  some  seventy  miles  of 
the  chief  high  road  of  Hayti,  lying  between  the  port  of 
Jacmel  and  the  capital.  Along  it  mails  and  money  pass 
every  fortnight  by  the  agency  of  couriers  and  mules. 
Outside  of  Hayti  this  road  bears  a  sinister  reputation.  To 
quote    from    a    letter    written    to    me    from   a    neighbouring 


14  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

island :     "  Persons    may    travel    with    great   danger  by  land 
over  the  hills  from  Jacmel  to  Port-au-Prince." 

The  country  lying  between  is  said  to  be  a  hotbed  of 
snake-worship,  with  its  accompaniments  of  superstition  and 
sacrifice,  as,  indeed,  is  all  the  mountain-land  of  the  Republic. 

On  first  sight,  my  guide,  Petit  Sans-Nom,  was  a  puny 
Haytian  of  meek  aspect.  His  duty  in  life  was  to  clean 
out  the  Custom  House,  with  interludes  of  acting  as  courier 
on  the  Port-au-Prince  road.  His  face  and  head  were  curi- 
ously small,  and  he  wore  a  scanty  curling  goatee.  In  his 
soiled  white  coat  and  ragged  trousers  he  listened  humbly 
while  the  General  of  the  Custom  House  was  good  enough 
to  say  that  if  he  misbehaved  himself  he  should,  on  any 
complaint  from  me,  be  immediately  cast  into  prison.  I 
left  him  pursuing  his  vocation  with  a  grass  broom. 

On  the  morrow  we  met  again.  His  bearing  was  sur- 
prisingly altered ;  a  heavy  cutlass  swung  at  his  side,  and 
he  was  fiercely  urging  a  little  mule  to  the  appointed  start- 
ing-place. Two  grass  bags  were  slung  across  the  mule, 
into  which  he  stowed  my  baggage,  and  while  one  wondered 
how  so  undersized  an  animal  could  be  expected  to  carry 
it.  Petit  Sans-Nom,  perceiving  that  the  two  sides  did  not 
balance,  considerately  added  an  enormous  stone  as  a  make- 
weight. He  then  mounted  on  top  of  all,  and  sat  awaiting 
my  convenience  in  the  shade  of  a  tamarind  tree.  Five 
minutes    afterwards    I    had    bidden    good-bye    to    H.B.M.'s 


MY    GUIDE. 


THE  HIGH  ROAD  OF  HAYTI.  17 

Consular  Agent,  to  whose  kindness  I  owed  so  much,  and 
was  riding  with  my  guide  out  of  Jacmel, 

I  had  been  told  that  it  would  be  necessary  to  ford  the 
two  rivers,  the  Grande  Riviere  and  the  Gosseleine,  any 
number  of  times  between  a  hundred  and  fifty  and  two 
hundred.  Rain  had  also  fallen  recently,  and  the  fords  were 
deep.  For  a  mile  or  so  we  threaded  along  the  narrow 
track  overhung  by  creepers  and  trees,  and  we  were  at  the 
first  ford. 

The  silver  river,  embedded  in  green  and  as  clear  as  a 
trout  stream,  came  suddenly  across  our  way  in  one  of  its 
many  bends.  The  water  was  about  four  feet  deep,  and 
the  hour  at  which  we  crossed  it  was  half-past  three.  Before 
the  quarter  to  four  I  had  counted  nine  fordages.  lly  half- 
past  five  the  number  had  swelled  to  eighty-one.  After 
that  counting  became  monotonous.  The  road  was,  in  fact, 
the  river-bed,  with  its  loops  and  oval  curvings,  and  we 
followed  it  glen  by  glen  through  hollows  clothed  in  fresh, 
rain-flushed  greenery.  Sometimes  we  sagged  up  and  down 
hillsides,  with  now  and  then  a  glimpse  upwards  of  a  tree- 
less, conical  slope  covered  with  pointed  grey  stones,  or  an 
open  valley  massed  with  foliage  of  a  dark  potato-leaf  tint, 
flecked  with  the  broad  pale  blades  of  banana  palms. 

Dusk  came  upon  us  while  we  were  still  making  our  way 
through  the  thickly-wooded  gorges;  the  river-bed,  (con- 
sidered   as    a    high    road)    becoming    worse   every  moment. 


1 8  WHERE  black; RULES  WHITE. 

Fireflies  came  out  and  danced  among  the  foliage  overhead, 
and  all  the  myriad  crickets  and  frogs  ticked  and  croaked 
about  us,  like  an  army  of  pigmies  marking  time.  We  had 
arranged  to  sleep  at  the  foot  of  the  mountains,  and  my 
guide  had  promised  that  we  should  arrive  there  before 
nightfall. 

When  darkness  unmistakably  settled  down,  I  asked  him 
how  much  farther  we  had  to  go.  Petit  Sans-Nom  stooped 
to  no  subterfuge.  "Far,  far,"  he  said,  frankly.  And  far 
it  was.  Hour  joined  hour  in  the  measureless  past,  and 
still  we  struggled  on.  At  this  stage  of  the  journey  we 
began  to  pass  human  habitations  which  in  every  particular 
might  have  been  borrowed  wholesale  from  West  Africa. 
Here  and  there  red  fires  burned  in  the  gloom  of  a  stockade. 
Round  them  crouched  figures  clad  in  little,  the  children 
clad  not  at  all,  and  in  the  heart  of  the  glow  were  people 
dancing  to  the  monotonous  clap  of  hands.  Outside  the 
circle  you  could  see  the  squat  outlines  and  the  humpy 
shoulders  of  thatch  huts. 

At  last  the  small  mule  mutinied.  She  refused  to  face  a 
ford,  and  tipped  off  the  baggage  and  Petit  Sans-Nom  with 
one  abrupt  action.  She  submitted  to  the  baggage  being 
loaded  on  again,  but  allow  her  human  burden  to  remount 
she  would  not.  So  the  procession  of  two  became  a  pro- 
cession of  three,  the  guide  straining  on  the  head-rope,  the 
mule    throwing    off  the    baggage    whenever    possible,    and 


THE  HIGH  ROAD  OF  HAYTI.  19 

the  traveller  and  horse  bringing  up  a  weary  and  inglori- 
ous rear. 

The  prospect  of  sleep  and  food  receded  while  the  hours 
went  by,  but,  as  my  horse  gathered  himself  to  scramble 
up  a  steep  bank  of  more  than  usual  slipperiness.  Petit 
Sans-Nom  encouraged  him  with  the  remark  that  it  was  the 
last  ford,  and  rising  above  us  in  the  gloom  I  made  out  the 
dim  shoulder  of  a  mountain.  With  renewed  hope  we 
climbed  upwards  into  a  sound  of  voices  singing.  A  palm- 
thatched  hut  peeped  through  the  foliage,  and  in  it  they 
were  holding  high  festival.  Petit  Sans-Nom  pulled  down 
the  gate  of  the  enclosure,  and  led  the  way  in,  and  by  the 
starlight  I  saw  two  or  three  subsidiary  huts  beside  the  one 
where  they  were  making  merry.  The  guide  shouted,  and 
the  noise  ceased  abruptly ;  the  door  opened,  and  questions 
were  asked  in  Creole,  to  which  we  were  able  to  give  satis- 
factory rephes.     Forthwith  they  invited  us  inside. 

There  were  six  people  in  the  central  windowless  room, 
which  was  lit  by  a  flaming  tin  lamp  that  leaped  in  the 
draughts,  and  showed  the  earthen  floor,  wooden  table,  and 
red  water-bottle,  the  ordinary  furnishing  of  the  peasant's 
home.  A  little  girl  was  stirred  to  wakefulness,  a  tablecloth 
was  produced,  a  mattress  was  laid  upon  the  floor.  I  can 
remember  eating  something,  and  lying  down.  My  next 
recollection  is  the  being  wakened  some  hours  before  daylight. 

While    it   was  still  dark  we  ascended  the  lower  spurs  of 


20  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  \VHITE. 

the  mountain,  which  rises  eastward  to  Prince's  Peak,  5,000ft. 
high,  and  the  dawn  was  not  full  when  we  could  see  both 
grey  seas, — to  the  south  the  Caribbean  Sea,  to  the  north 
the  bay  of  Port-au-Prince,  with  its  misty  island. 

The  river  road  had  been  bad,  but  the  mountain  road 
was  worse.  When  we  met  a  cavalcade  of  donkeys  we 
spent  half  an  hour  in  edging  across  the  top  of  a  precipice, 
where  the  path  only  allowed  of  the  passage  of  one  at  a 
time.  When  at  last  we  reached  the  level,  the  track 
broadened  out  into  a  road  some  30ft.  wide,  but  horses  and 
donkeys  had  passed  over  it  when  it  was  soft  with  the  rains, 
and  the  sun  had  subsequently  hardened  the  hollows  and 
mouldings  of  mud  into  ridges.  We  followed  this  route 
across  the  plain  through  the  forenoon  until  we  came  within 
sight  of  the  sea  which  lay  be}'ond  a  broad  belt  of  swamp. 
A  wind  puffed  lazily  over  the  marsh,  and  the  sun  beat 
furiously  down  upon  the  road  as  we  were  swept  up  into  a 
mile-long  procession  of  negroes  and  negresses  with  laden 
donkeys   and  mules  on  their  way  to  the  morrow's  market. 

We  came  to  a  bridge  after  a  while,  and  my  guide  said : 
"When  you  see  a  bridge  ahva^'s  go  round  it."  Later  I 
discovered  this  to  be  a  national  proverb.  It  was  sound 
advice,  too,  for  the  bridge  had  a  6ft.  hole  in  the  centre  of 
it.  Here  the  road,  in  spite  of  all  its  shortcomings,  was  a 
highway,  with  its  dark  stream  of  people  flowing  ahead  of 
us  into  the  capital. 


THK  HIGH  ROAD  OF  HAVTI.  21 

So  with  the  sun  still  boring  a  hole  in  the  small  of  my 
back,  I  at  length  jogged,  wet  and  weary,  into  the  heart 
of  Port-au-Prince,  where,  after  a  little  searching,  I  found 
a  hotel. 

They  say  that  the  first  act  of  every  nation  in  founding 
a  new  colony  is  typical.  Spain  builds  a  church,  England 
founds  a  bank,  and  La  Belle  France  opens  and  patronises 
a  cafe.  For  the  moment,  I  preferred  the  P'rench  plan  in 
that  it  administers  to  the  primary  necessities  of  the  human 
frame. 

P" ranee  has  evacuated  Port-au-Prince  for  a  hundred  years; 
do  her  cafes  survive  ?  In  a  degenerate  form  they  do,  for 
Haytian  life  is  negro  life  grafted  upon  French  life,  and  the 
black  man  possesses  among  his  faults  or  virtues  a  strong 
conservatism.  The  national  impulse  of  the  colonising 
Frenchman  is  to  imitate  Paris.  The  nearer  his  handiwork 
can  approach  to  the  original   ideal,  the  nearer  he  is  to  bliss. 

We  have,  therefore,  in  the  town  of  Port-au-Prince  an 
imitation  of  Paris  made  a  hundred  years  ago  by  men  who 
had  seen  the  original ;  and  carried  on  and  revised  during 
the  last  century  by  a  negro  race,  who  —  the  enormous 
majority  of  them,  at  least — have  not. 

The  hotel  to  which  I  had  come  was  an  oblong  building, 
rimmed  below  with  narrow  doors,  and  above  with  the  usual 
wooden  piazza.  Mules  and  horses  were  hitched  to  the 
posts,    and  from   the  open  doors  an  overpowering  smell  of 


22  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

coffee  greeted  you.  The  bar  was  filled  with  Haytians, 
many  in  black  frock-coats  and  straw  hats,  imbibing  the 
brown  "rhum"  of  the  country. 

They  were  lean  men,  bony-shouldered,  with  long  faces 
pointed  by  fuzzy  thin  goatees,  who  greeted  each  other  with 
an  elaborate  politeness,  shaking  hands  indifferently  with 
the  right  hand  or  the  left. 

The  coloured  barman  manipulated  a  long  drink,  and  the 
question  of  a  room  in  which  to  sleep  was  mooted.  Had 
they  one  ?  Had  they  not  1  a  fine  big  room,  would  le  blanc 
engage?  No,  le  blanc  would  see  first.  Would  le  blanc 
come  this  way  then,  and  they  would  show  him  ?  He  followed, 
and,  passing  through  a  dining-room  of  five  or  six  tables, 
furnished  with  dirty  cloths  and  picturesque  red  earthen- 
ware water-jugs,  was  once  more  in  the  street. 

Turning  to  the  left,  we  found  an  iron  door  on  which 
the  ancient  red  paint  was  blotched  and  faded.  It  opened 
upon  a  basement  crowded  with  dogs  and  negroes ;  from 
this  a  wooden  staircase  climbed  to  the  upper  floor  of  the 
establishment.  The  building  was  two  rooms  thick.  First 
came  the  ante-room  and  billiard-room,  and  here  the  after- 
noon heat  hung  palpable.  A  wine-splashed  table  gave  the 
place  an  air  of  just  awaking  after  a  night  of  it,  and  the 
idea  was  not  refuted  by  after-experience.  Then  on  along 
a  black  passage  to  No.  9,  and  I  was  there. 

The  room  had  been  but  lately  vacated,  and  the  evidence 


THE  HIGH  ROAD  OF  HAYTI.  25 

of  another  presence  spoke  aloud  from  bed  and  basin.  Two 
windows  gave  upon  the  street,  further  ventilation  was  pro- 
vided by  jalousies  opening  into  the  sleeping  rooms  on  each 
side,  lack  of  privacy  being  a  detail  compared  with  the 
luxury  of  a  thorough  draught.  A  mosquito-net  of  bygone 
efficacy  hung  stagnant  over  the  bed,  and  mosquitoes  buzzed 
round  the  dirty  wooden  walls  in  platoons. 

This  was  the  room,  the  waiter  could  not  conceal  his 
pride  in  it — a  fine  room,  as  one  could  see ;  would  not  le 
blanc  engage? 

To  whom  did  this  hotel  belong, — to  a  Haytian?  But 
yes,  to  a  Haytian  certainly.  The  rent  of  the  room  was 
two  dollars  per  day.  Monsieur  would  stay  en  pension''^ 
That  would  be  two  dollars  more.  Thus,  for  the  sum  of 
four  dollars  a  day  (Haytian  value),  drinks  extra,  the  wan- 
derer   in    Hayti  had  secured  a  resting-place  and  stokerage. 

Outside  the  windows  coursed  an  open  drain  which  told 
plainly  of  its  mission,  and  refuse  of  all  indescribable  sorts 
lay  inches  deep  in  the  street.  The  view  extended  over 
the  lower  town,  beyond  which  stood  up  the  tall  masts  of 
ships;  farther  still,  the  green,  nameless  islands  of  Port- 
au-Prince  Bay  set  against  a  background  of  blue  tropic  sea. 
How  the  heat  danced !  And  the  noises  in  the  street, — the 
uncouth  yelling  of  negroes,  the  bark  of  dogs,  and  the 
grunt  of  scavenging  pigs,  —  came  up  in  a  babel. 

What  with  the  heat,  the  mosquitoes,  and  the  noise  there 


26  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

arose  a  yearning  for  that  primary  necessity — a  bath.  The 
heavy-footed  negro  came  padding  back  into  the  room.  The 
tin  bath  was  at  the  service  of  le  blanc.  At  once?  He 
would  see.  And  after  that,  something  to  eat.  Very  good ! 
It  was  a  first  experience  of  the  Haytian  gargoii,  and  things 
hung  fire. 

But  to  describe  the  first  night  in  that  room  1  No  wind 
stirred  the  steaming  air;  it  was  Hke  Hving  at  the  bottom 
of  a  well  of  vapour.  Cocks  crowed  throughout  the  live- 
long night,  and  poker  was  being  played  with  vivacity  at 
the  end  of  the  passage  from  which  one  was  only  divided 
by  mere  wooden  slats.  Not  fifty  odd  miles  in  the  saddle 
could  conquer  these  drawbacks  and  bring  the  welcome  gift 
of  sleep. 

Next  morning  le  blanc  turned  up  to  dejewier  weary  and 
heavy-eyed  after  a  late  morning  sleep. 

"  Slept  well?  "  asked  an  American,  "  any  mosquitoes  ?  "  All 
visible  skin-surfaces  bore  eloquent  witness.  '*  Yes,  by  Josh  1 
they've  done  you  proud.  Say,  ever  hear  the  story  of  the 
man  who  shot  a  mosquito  up  in  that  room  of  yours  with 
an  eight-bore  duck  gun,  and  only  wounded  it?" 

For  four  days  and  nights  I  held  the  fort  of  No.  9,  then 
I  gave  in,  capitulated  miserably,  and  left  the  mosquitoes 
and  noises  in  possession.  I  departed  towards  evening,  and 
the  loose-treading,  good-hearted  nigger  waiters,  who  sleep 
on    three  chairs,  and  don't  know  what  a  mosquito  is,  save 


THE  HIGH  ROAD  OF  HAYTI.  27 

by  the  sense  of  sight,  came  round  and  demanded  "  petits 
cadeaux." 

After  all,  I  left  with  some  regret,  for  though  the  hotel 
was  dirty,  it  must  in  fairness  be  said  that  one  could  meet 
with  its  equal  in  that  respect  in  not  a  few  places  within 
the  Spanish  frontier.  And,  at  least,  the  proprietors  were 
amiably  anxious  to  please,  and  spared  no  trouble. 

I  went  up  to  the  only  other  hotel  in  the  town,  which 
stands  above  the  palace  of  the  President  on  the  Champ-de- 
Mars.  There  the  arrangements  accorded  better  with  pre- 
judiced English  notions,  and  there  was  a  night  wind  thrown 
in.  It  is  difficult  to  realise  that  in  the  whole  State,  con- 
taining, it  is  said,  some  million  and  three-quarters  of  inhabi- 
tants, there  exist  but  three  hotels. 

Occasionally  when  I  was  feeling  low  I  used  to  go  down 
and  have  a  meal  at  my  old  quarters,  and  the  thought  that 
it  was  no  longer  my  fate  to  become  mosquito-chop  in 
No.  9  never  failed  to  throw  a  fresh  luminance  of  relief  over 
my  sojourn  in  the  capital  of  the  Black  Republic. 

So  for  some  weeks  I  sojourned  in  Port-au-Prince  and  by 
degrees    acquired  a  knowledge  of  the  Black  Man's  capital. 

Within  an  arc  of  hazy  blue  mountains,  threaded  with 
clouds  of  a  hundred  delicate  shades,  Port-au-Prince  lies  upon 
its  beaches  like  the  white  skeleton  of  a  stranded  whale,  of 
which  the  rib-bones  are  the  houses.  The  grass,  that  seems  to 
grow  between  them,  heads  up  into  palm  trees  as  you  draw 


28  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHFrE. 

nearer.  Viewed  from  afar  you  would  call  it  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  spots  on  God's  earth.  But  go  down  into 
the  squalid  streets,  and  you  find  the  town  is  a  fester,  a 
scar  made  by  man,  as  it  were  of  malice  prepense,  upon 
the  natural   loveliness  of  his  environment. 

It  was  good  on  quiet  evenings  and  on  certain  cloudy 
dawns  to  ride  away  from  this  city  of  gutters  and  garbage, 
out  of  earshot  of  the  multiloquous  negro  voices,  and  look 
down  on  the  blue  horse-shoe  of  the  bay,  where  the  island 
of  Gonave  floats  in  shadow,  and  to  watch  the  soft  southern 
greys  and  purples  thrown  on   mountain,  shore,  and  sea. 

At  first  sight  Port-au-Prince  looks  fair  enough  to  be  worth 
travelling  5,000  miles  to  see;  once  enter  it,  and  your  next 
impulse  is  to  travel  5,000  miles  to  get  away  again.  Passing 
through  the  streets,  the  life  around  seems  a  strange  graft 
of  Parisianism  and  savagery.  Here  is  an  idolatry  of  fashion, 
an  insistent  militarism,  and  an  exuberance  of  speech  all 
verging  on  the  grotesque — a  distended  caricature  of  the 
orginal. 

Here  the  white  man,  as  opposed  to  the  black,  has  no 
rights  worthy  of  the  name.  Moreover,  the  town  is  under 
martial  law.  This  condition  of  things  is  permanent,  although 
the  country  has  been  for  several  years  past  at  rest  from 
internal  dissensions.  After  nine  you  are  challenged  in  the 
streets,  and  at  no  time  of  the  day  or  night  are  you  out  of 
sight  of  a  soldier. 


THE  HIGH  ROAD  OF  HAYTI.  31 

The  chief  boulevard  is  the  Rue  des  Miracles,  a  broad 
street  some  three-quarters  of  a  mile  in  length.  Trees  over- 
hang the  roadway,  a  wheezy  steam-tram  makes  half-hourly 
journeys  up  and  down  from  the  quays  to  the  Champ  de 
Mars.  There  are  no  footways ;  road-mending  appears  to 
be  a  lost  art,  and  the  whole  surface  is  as  rough  as  the 
bed  of  a  torrent. 

At  intervals  of  from  50  to  100  yards  you  find  a  post  of 
soldiers.  They  live  in  ramshackle  guardrooms  made  of 
wood  turned  rust-colour  from  lack  of  care  and  the  corro- 
sion of  torrential  rains,  a  longish  hovel  with  the  inevitable 
piazza  raised  some  two  feet  above  the  street.  Below  flows 
an  open  drain.  The  heavy  faces  of  the  men  are  blotched 
with  sleep.  Some  play  dice  on  the  bench  by  the  wall, 
some  lounge  in  hammocks  slung  from  the  trees  over  the 
sluggish  sewer ;  two  or  three  fires  of  boughs  serve  to  cook 
their  slender  meals,  which  are  not  provided  by  the  State. 
A  collection  of  guns  leans  against  the  trees  at  various  angles. 
The  whole  is  more  like  a  mid-forest  bivouac  of  a  few  ragged 
blacks  than  a  scene  in  the  main  thoroughfare  of  a  capital. 

The  city  has  no  architectural  pretensions.  The  houses 
are  mostly  built  of  wood,  and  fires  are  of  frequent  occurrence, 
though  it  is  now  some  time  since  they  had  a  serious  one. 
The  finest  buildings  are  the  Cathedral,  which  stands  at  the 
head  of  the  boulevard,  and  the  white  palace  of  the  President. 
When  I  passed  the  latter  the  President  was  sitting  on  the 


32  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

balcony,  playing  draughts.  He  is  a  full-blooded  negro,  with 
a  heavy  face  and  huge  negro  mouth  set  between  a  grey 
beard  and  grey  hair  brushed  up  from  his  forehead.  He 
must  weigh  close  upon  eighteen  stone. 

He  is  a  superlative  specimen  of  his  race,  and  the  black 
faction  in  Hayti  have  at  least  secured  an  admirably  repre- 
sentative figurehead.  To  make  this  clear,  it  must  be  ex- 
plained that  Hayti  for  the  black,  as  differentiated  from  the 
mulatto  or  coloured  man,  is  the  watchword  of  the  great 
majority  in  the  Republic. 

The  palace  stands  on  the  fringe  of  the  Champ  de  Mars, 
where  the  reviews  are  held ;  —  an  open  space,  on  which 
the  scanty  grass  breaks  into  patches  of  dusty  baldness, 
and  bloated  bull-frogs  hold  nightly  concerts  in  the  intersect- 
ing ditches. 

Turning  back  to  the  city,  one  passes  by  the  steps  of  the 
Cathedral,  which  is  open  and  tropical,  the  interior  hung 
with  dark  curtains  and  supplied  with  a  profusion  of  pictures 
and  colour.  The  town  possesses  a  peculiar  picturesqueness 
of  its  own,  unlike  anything  one  sees  in  any  other  quarter 
of  the  globe.  But  you  walk  through  its  cobbled  streets  with 
circumspection,   for  they  are  ankle-deep  in  refuse. 

Even  in  the  Place,  which  contains  the  Consulates  and 
the  chief  shops,  there  is  a  heap  of  corruption  five  or  six 
feet  high  and  more  than  proportionately  long.  The  waspish 
cab    of  the    country,    known    as    a    "'bus,"    has  just  about 


THE  HIGH  ROAD  OF  HAYTI.  33 

room  to  pass  between  this  gigantic  rubbish-shoot — or,  as 
it  might  more  truthfully  be  called,  dunghill— and  a  black 
drain  that  skirts  the  beams  supporting  the  piazzas  of  the 
houses.      And    this  is  the  cleanest  street  in  Port-au-Prince. 

It  is  appalling  to  imagine  what  might  happen  were  an 
epidemic  to  break  out  here.  The  town  has  its  foundations 
literally  set  upon  decay.  I  have  seen  more  than  one  of 
those  unhealthy  spots  to  which  is  attached  the  sobriquet 
of  "White  Man's  Grave,"  but  none  of  them  have  the  invi- 
tation to  disease  written  so  plainly  across  their  faces  as 
this  city  of  Port-au-Prince.  And  yet  disease  in  its  largest 
sense  seldom  visits  it. 

At  the  corner  of  the  Ruedu-Peuple  I  came  upon  a  white 
man,  clad  in  sea-going  blue,  moving  cautiously  with  dis- 
gusted nostril. 

"Hello!"  he  said;  "would  you  be  so  good  as  to  point 
out  to  me  the  shortest  way  to  the  quay?" 

I  indicated  the  direction, 

"  I  say,"  he  continued,  overlooking  me  with  interest, 
"how  long  have  you  lived  here.'" 

"  Four  days,"   I  said. 

"I  wish  I  had  your  constitution  then!  Pve  been  ashore 
here  an  hour  and  three-quarters,  and  if  I  haven't  a  museum 
of  the  most  virulent  microbes  inside  me  it  isn't  the  fault 
of  this  town,  that's  all."      And  he  passed  on  hurriedly. 

It    is    about    the  filthiest  place  in  the  world ;   shut  in  by 

3 


34  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

mountains  from  the  cool  north  winds,  it  stews  on  from 
year  to  year  in  stagnant  heat.  No  smallest  effort  is  made 
at  sanitation ;  the  street-drains  with  all  their  contaminations 
flow  down  and  help  to  fill  up  the  harbour.  At  times  the 
rain  flushes  them,  and  this  effort  of  Nature  seems  to  be 
the  sole  force  that  tends  to  cleanliness.  Under  these  circum- 
stances you  would  expect  Port-au-Prince  to  pay  a  heavy  toll 
to  the  lords  of  disease.  Surely  this  must  be  the  most 
unhealthy  spot  in  the  world.  But  it  is  not  so.  Why? 
There  you  have  a  question  no  one  can  answer. 

Of  course  the  ordinary  malarial  fevers  are  by  no  means 
uncommon,  but  the  absence  of  other  and  more  serious 
diseases  leaves  one  to  speculate  to  what  height  Port-au- 
Prince  might  soar  as  a  health  resort  if  an  enterprising  and 
wholesome  Government  did  away  with  the  present-day 
horrors  of  the  streets. 

Among  this  accumulated  dirt,  black  ladies,  in  all  cases 
well-dressed — many  of  them  in  the  handiwork  of  Parisian 
artists — pick  their  perilous  way  or  drive  past  in  buggies 
atilt  at  impossible  angles  over  the  unevenness  of  the  streets. 
Wherever  you  go  the  policeman,  with  his  four-foot,  ironshod 
club  of  cocomacaque,  is  a  constant  and  conspicuous  figure. 

He  demands  a  chapter  to  himself,  but  it  is  difficult  to 
forego  mention  of  him  here,  as  his  zeal  is  so  significant  a 
factor  in  the  Haytian  daily  life.  When  he  has  fairly  got 
his    man    down,    and    knocked    most  of  the  life  out  of  him 


THE  HIGH  ROAD  OF  HAYTI.  37 

with  his  club,  the  picture  he  makes  standing  over  the 
bleeding  figure  in  the  road,  with  the  ancient  litter  about 
them,  and  the  blazing  sun  over  all,  could  scarcely  find  its 
counterpart  out  of  wild   West  Afi'ica. 

Passing  under  an  arch  bearing  the  name  of  a  late  Presi- 
dent, "  Hippolyte —President,  Progress — Union,"  I  entered 
the  chief  market,  and  it  was  market-day.  The  buyers  and 
sellers  spread  themselves  like  an  open  camp  into  the  streets 
around,  the  smell  was  appalling;  and  here,  seated  upon 
the  leavings  of  bygone  markets,  the  citizens  of  the  Republic 
do  a  brisk  trade. 

The  meat  market  is  well  supplied ;  it  is  presided  over 
by  burly  butchers  and  gorged  bluebottles.  In  the  various 
approaches  you  can  trace  unpleasantly  the  evolution  of 
flesh-foods,  the  raw  material  of  your  future  meals.  Pigs 
and  goats,  with  their  legs  tied  together,  raise  their  voices 
in  expostulation  as  they  lie  in  the  sun.  One  has  wriggled 
to  a  neighbouring  drain,  and  is  gulping  the  thick  fluid. 
Women,  with  piles  of  vegetables  and  fruit,  boast  one 
against  the  other;  over  the  vociferous  babble  rises  the 
lilt  of  a  monotonous  song.  Fires  smoulder  here  and 
there,  and  the  acrid  blue  smoke  hangs  between  sun  and 
scene. 

The  whole  is  uni(|ue,  Haytian;  politeness  is  mingled  with 
brutality,  raucousness  with  a  strange  grace  of  demeanour. 
Picturesque,   but  eminently  nasty,  the  spirit  of  neglect,  one 


38  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

inevitable  accompaniment  of  a  black  Government,  broods 
over  all,  till  one  sickens  in  the  sunshine. 

"We  are  polite  always,"  said  a  man  to  me.  He  spoke 
in  vindication  of  various  evils.  But  one  cannot  justify 
one's  destiny  by  raising  one's  hat  to  a  stranger. 

Port-au-Prince  leaves  you  with  three  impressions  more 
vivid  than  the  rest:  the  puny  beasts  of  burden,  each  sur- 
mounted by  a  negress ;  the  blue  pervasive  soldier,  and  the 
black  pervasive  dirt.  Through  the  human  torrent  old  hooded 
cabs  are  driven  recklessly,  and  the  open  market  is  the 
backwash  of  the  stream. 

Just  outside  the  town,  towards  the  triumphal  arch  of 
Hippolyte,  is  a  building  with  a  roof  of  corrugated  iron. 
You  go  in.  The  rude  painting  of  a  snake,  a  few  soiled 
flags,  a  few  prints  from  illustrated  papers,  are  almost  its 
sole  furniture  and  ornament.  You  would  not  think  it,  but 
here  you  are  in  a  Vaudoux  temple,  clinging  upon  the  very 
skirts  of  civilisation.  The  worship  is  carried  on,  if  not 
openly,  at  least  unrestrainedly. 


CHAPTER    III. 


THE   HAYTIAN    GENERAL. 


Hayti  is  governed  by  Generals  in  all  sizes.  I  wonder 
how  many  of  them  there  are  in  the  country.  I  wondered 
all  the  time  I  was  there.  I  am  still  wondering.  The  General 
is  so  ubiquitous  that  it  leads  you  to  doubt  whether  it  may 
not  be  possible  that  while  to  be  a  General  is  no  compliment, 
not  to  be  one  is  in  the  nature  of  a  slap  in  the  face. 

I  have  been  given  the  rank  myself;  given  it  by  many, 
in  the  hot  white  street ;  given  it  by  the  drivers  of  wheezy, 
weedy  fiacres,  by  goateed  Haytian  gentlemen  —General, 
General.  You  could  not,  I  am  sure,  walk  along  any  of 
the  main  streets  of  Port-au-Prince  without  meeting  ten 
Generals. 

One  day  I  tried  to  attract  the  attention  of  a  small  black 
boy  who  sometimes  did  odd  jobs  for  me.  His  age  I  should 
put  at  ten  years.     A  companion  of  his  who  saw  my  need 


40  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

shouted  across  to  attract  his  attention.  What  did  he  shout? 
Why — "  General." 

I  occupied  myself  for  some  time  in  looking  up  the  numeri- 
cal force  of  military  Hayti.  I  could  find  no  exact  statistics 
of  later  data  than  1867,  when  there  were  6,500  Generals 
of  Division,  7,000  regimental  officers,  and  6,500  privates. 
At  this  computation  the  troops  commanded  by  each  General 
of  Division  consisted  of  one  private  and  one  regimental 
officer,  and  one-thirteenth  of  a  regimental  officer. 

I  made  a  great  many  inquiries  as  to  the  army  of 
the  Republic,  I  tapped  a  hundred  possible  sources  of 
information,  but  found  no  one  able  to  supply  me  with 
hard,  sure,  and  certain  facts  on  the  subject.  Like  Hadji 
Baba  of  immortal  memory,  when  he  was  sent  to  discover 
the  number  of  the  enemy's  guns,  they  were  wont  to  make 
answer  in  the  same  illusory  fashion,  "One^two — three — 
five —six  hundred." 

At  length  in  a  fortunate  hour  I  purchased  of  an  ancient 
man  a  book  which  purported  to  give  a  list  of  the  regiments 
and  some  other  details.  I  took  it  to  one  of  the  officials, 
who  I  supposed  might  be  able  to  help  me,  and  asked  him 
if  it  was  correct.  He  loosely  said  it  was.  Anyway,  it  was 
not  hopelessly  incorrect,  and  he  added  that  if  I  secured 
the  exact  statistics  for  the  moment  I  should  probably  find 
them  considerably  modified  in  six  months.  There  is  evi- 
dently no  stagnation  of  this  particular  kind  in  Hayti. 


..^^- 


THE  HAYTIAN  GENERAL.  43 

As  I  have  said,  the  country  is  governed  by  Generals. 
The  biggest  of  all  is  President  Tiresias  Augustin  Simon 
Sam.  Directly  under  him  are  the  Generals  of  Departments  ; 
below  them  are  Generals  of  Arrondissements  and  of  Com- 
munes. Lower  again  are  Generals  of  subdivisions,  Generals 
of  Postes  Militaires,  and  so  it  goes  on.  There  is  a  General 
of  the  prison,  and  a  General  of  the  women's  prison. 

The  man  who  kept  the  hotel  I  stayed  at  was  not  a 
General,  but  then  he  was  not  a  Haytian.  At  last  I  found 
myself  asking  whether  the  waiter  did  not,  on  his  evenings 
off,  also  flower  into  a  lace-bound  General.  There  have 
been  waiters  very  much  Generals,  and  one  who  made 
himself  not  only  a  General-President,  but  a  General- 
Emperor. 

It  is  beautiful,  this  militarism,  but  it  has  made  me  decide 
never  to  return  to  Hayti.  Raptiste  of  the  soda-water  syphon, 
who  nightly  waged  war  with  the  little  boys  under  the 
door-slats,  might  in  the  meantime  have  become  a  General, 
and  who  can  say  in  what  spirit  he  might  remember  the 
former  exactions  of  the  white  man? 

The  General  is  prolific ;  not  that  I  mean  that  all  his  sons 
are  Generals  "ipso  facto,"  but  from  the  forcing-ground  of 
each  revolution  springs  a  new  crop  of  honours.  What 
could  be  cheaper  for  the  exchequer  or  more  gratifying  to 
the  individual  than  the  bestowal  broadcast  of  the  rank  of 
General  1 


44  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

They  say,  but  this  1  do  not  guarantee,  that  a  certain 
President  beat  a  man  at  a  game  of  draughts,  and  in  his 
dehght  immediately  presented  him  with  a  General 's  com- 
mission. There  is  only  one  thing  of  which  I  am  absolu- 
tely certain,  which  is,  that  they  will  not  make  me  a  General 
for  writing  all  this  about  them. 

Lesser  titles  are  very  small  potatoes  indeed — "  Aut  General 
aut  nuUus."  But  when  you  look  a  little  more  closely,  while 
still  criticising  in  the  friendliest  spirit,  you  cannot  help 
wondering  if  this  elevation  in  the  bulk  to  high  military 
rank  is  not  due  to  the  same  spirit  as  that  which  impels 
the  savage  to  clothe  himself  in  the  rather  quaint  combina- 
tion of  a  tall  hat  and  a  girdle  of  hearse  feathers. 

The  same  tendency  towards  display  led  in  the  year  1849 
to  the  creation  of  a  black  nobility.  At  that  time  Soulouque 
was  Emperor,  calling  himself  Faustin  the  First,  and  he 
showered  titles  with  a  lavish  hand  among  his  supporters. 
Black  dukes  and  barons  strutted  it  through  the  Court. 
The  Emperor  gave  the  titles,  but  left  it  to  the  favoured 
ones  to  choose  their  own  designations,  which  they  appa- 
rently did  more  according  to  sound  than  to  knowledge. 

Of  the  four  Princes  one  was  Bobo,  and  it  is  almost 
tragic  to  learn  that  among  the  fifty-nine  dukes  were  their 
Graces  of  Marmalade  and  Lemonade!  But  Mr.  James 
Anthony  Fronde's  allusion  to  dukes  and  marquises  driving 
over  the  white  man  in  the  streets  of  Port-au-Prince  as  late 


THE  HAYTIAN  GENERAL.  45 

as  1887  is  surely  something  of  an  anachronism,  Hke  certain 
other  of  the  same  gentleman's  statements. 

To-day  their  places  are  taken  by  Generals.  The  Haytian 
is  tender  upon  the  subject  of  their  multiplicity.  If  you  ask 
him  questions  concerning  the  swollen  list  he  grows  restless 
and  prefers  another  topic.  In  Hayti  they  are  always  con- 
jugating a  compound  verb.  They  begin  young — in  the 
future  tense:  "I  will  be  a  General."  Everyone  hankers 
to  be  a  General.  It  is  the  hall-mark  of  success.  He  to 
whom  success  comes  vaunts  himself,  "  I  am  a  General 
of  the  Republic" ;  and  the  conjugation  has  rather  often 
been  known  to  end  abruptly  in  the  past  tense:  "He 
was  a  General."  The  man  who  lives  to  say  the  last  of 
himself  says  it  from  overseas,  coupled  with  bitter  reflec- 
tions upon  his  native  land. 

An  urban  General  is  in  most  cases  but  a  name,  whereas 
his  congener  of  the  country  is  usually  a  living  power. 
You  find  in  the  villages  that  the  General  of  place  and 
commune  has  a  distinct  position.  He  lives  in  a  house  a 
little  larger  and  a  little  better  than  those  of  his  neighbours 
— I  had  almost  said  subjects — with  an  extra  outbuilding  in 
his  stockade,  a  better  horse,  and,  perhaps,  an  extra  wife  or 
two.  Under  his  fierce  rule  the  commune  bows  to  the  rigour 
of  the  law;  the  peasantry  cannot  be  said  to  prosper,  but 
at  least  they  are  inoffensive  and  polite. 

The    reason  is  not  far  to  seek.     The  black  man  can  no 


46  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

more  govern  his  black  brother  successfully  without  tyranny 
than  you  can  reach  a  blind  man's  sense  without  touch  or 
speech.  No  appeal  is  made  to  his  reason ;  he  is  coerced 
by  solid  fear. 

Hear  him  pray,  and  you  will  understand  him  better.  He 
does  not  supplicate  his  God ;  he  demands  of  his  God ;  he 
essays  to  bargain.  That  is  because  his  deity  is  far  away 
out  of  sight;  therefore,  in  relation  to  that  unfelt  power  he 
begins  to  esteem  himself  and  his  desires,  and  to  be  puffed 
up  out  of  all  due  proportion.  Whereas  the  grip  of  his 
General's  iron  hand  is  unmistakably  evident  over  all  the 
hours  of  his  daily  life. 

When  I  was  at  Thomazeau,  the  last  Haytian  town  before 
one  reaches  the  Dominican  frontier,  an  incident  very  typical 
of  the  Spartan  sway  of  these  local  pashas  had  occurred. 
A  man  stole  a  cow.  He  was  caught  and  shot  dead  the 
next  morning  by  orders  of  the  General  de  la  Place.  The 
result  of  this  measure  of  summary  justice  was  that  you 
might  have  left  a  handful  of  silver  dollars — nay,  more,  your 
open  rum  flask — in  the  village  street,  nor  would  any  man 
have  dared  to  help  himself  to  either.  But  these  Generals, 
with  substantive  power,  are  conspicuously  in  the  minority. 

Regarded  from  the  point  of  view  of  possible  leaders  of 
the  Haytian  army,  it  must  be  conceded  that  they  have  yet 
to  prove  their  significance  and  to  win  their  spurs.  Since 
the  war  with  San  Domingo,  in  which  no  reputations  were 


THE  HAYTIAN  GENERAL.  47 

made,  the  Haytian  Generals  have  not  led  the  troops  down 
to  ahen  battle.  They  have  contented  themselves  with  being 
up  to  the  hilt  in  revolutions,  and  with  sunning  themselves 
at  dusty  reviews. 

If,  however,  the  State  ever  calls  them  to  its  service,  it 
is  unlikely  that  the  troops  will  be  left  without  a  General. 
Hayti  calculates  to  throw  at  any  moment  8,000  men  into 
the  field,  and  of  these  only  a  smattering"  would  not  be  full 
Generals. 

It  may  be  thought  it  is  because  of  the  emoluments  that 
the  Haytian  likes  to  become  a  General,  but  the  State  is 
wiser  than  that ;  out  of  the  numbers  who  are  entitled  to 
wear  gold  lace  not  one  in  ten  ever  sees  the  colour  of  State 
money.  Each  subsists  as  he  can,  yet  clings  to  the  nominal 
honour,  although  it  brings  many  expenses  in  its  train.  A 
story  goes  that  the  Haytian,  while  quite  content  to  leave 
his  all  of  worldly  wealth  behind  him,  yet  hopes  to  bear 
with  him  his  rank  of  General  across  the  lonely  frontier, 
and  still  to  cut  a  figure  with  it  in  another  and  a  better 
world. 

But  let  us  proceed  to  consider  the  Soldier.  My  first 
speaking  acquaintance  with  him  occurred  one  night  on  the 
Champ-de-Mars  near  the  President's  Palace.  I  repeated 
the  conversation  with  little  variation  on  numerous  occasions 
afterwards. 

'^  Blanc,  I  am  a  soldier,  give  me  ten  centimes." 


48  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHFrE. 

"  You  have  your  pay." 

"  My  General  has  taken  my  pay.  I  am  a  poor  man 
and  a  soldier.     Give  me  ten  centimes." 

"How  long  have  you   been  a  soldier?" 

"Three  years." 

"When  did  you  have  your  pay  last.'^" 

"  Very  long  ago,  and  I  am  hungry.  Give  me  ten  centimes. 
Merci,  blancT 

He  stood  before  me,  with  his  chinless,  thick-lipped  black 
face  under  a  blue  cap  banded  with  red.  He  wore  dried 
grass  slippers,  shabby  tweed  trousers,  and  a  faded  light-blue 
coat.  Over  his  shoulders  by  a  rough  hemp  rope  was  slung 
a  flintlock  gun,  and  he  was  hurrying  towards  beat  of  drum 
to  fall  in  for  the  evening  parade.  At  half-past  five  p.m.  the 
bugle-calls  come  trickling  through  the  crowded  streets,  drums 
beat,  and  the  army  of  Hayti  arises  from  its  benches  and 
its  dice.  The  guard  at  the  houses  of  Ministers  and  the 
men  at  the  police-stations  gather  together,  shoulder  arms, 
and  line  up  by  fours  to  twenties. 

Their  officer  stands  in  front  of  them  with  a  drawn  rusty 
sword.  The  soldiers  continue  to  be  interested  in  their  indi- 
vidual concerns.  One  is  chewing  a  banana,  another  is 
wolfing  sugar-cane,  gnawing  doglike  at  a  piece  two  feet 
long.  They  stand  there,  very  much  at  ease,  for  about  twenty 
minutes,  occasionally  going  through  a  slovenly  series  of 
movements,    then    the    General    takes    himself  off,  and  the 


A    GENERAL  S    EVENING   RIDE. 


THE  HAYTIAN  GENERAL.  51 

Haytian    army    once    more    disposes    itself  on    its  benches 
and  dozes  if  it  is  more  than  usually  hungry. 

Of  course  each  regiment  has  a  uniform  of  its  own,  but 
the  soldiery,  save  on  review  days — of  which  more  anon — 
put  on  the  trousers  the  good  God  sends  them  and  are 
thankful.  Of  a  score  drawn  up  in  line  no  two  are  dressed 
alike;  their  workaday  uniform  is  limited  to  the  red-banded 
kepi  and  rags.  As  to  vv^eapons,  a  broken  bristle  of  bayo- 
nets sticks  up  along  the  file,  but  all  the  men  have  rifles. 
They  are  of  different  calibres  and  decades  —  almost,  one 
might  say,  of  different  centuries.  In  one  group  I  found  a 
decrepit  magazine,  a  flintlock,  and  a  self  respecting  Remington. 

The  State  does  not  undertake  any  commissariat  obliga- 
tions, and  the  private's  pay  trickles  down  to  him  through 
more  than  one  absorbent  channel.  Visible  means  of  sub- 
sistence he  has  practically  none;  he  seeks  food  to  eke  out 
existence  much  as  a  stray  cat  does  in  England.  He  purrs 
pitifully  and  pessimistically  about  the  '  blanc '  when  he  meets 
him,  and  pounces  upon  the  weaker  units  of  his  own  colour 
with  a  highly-developed  instinct  of  plunder.  When  there 
happens  to  be  a  lack  of  such  happy  chances  and  he  is 
more  than  usually  hungry,  he  goes  to  sleep.  So  in  the  hot 
town  the  Haytian  soldiery  drowses  unstirred  by  dreams  of 
golden  glory.  Its  attention  is  fully  occupied  in  strenuous 
effort  to  keep  its  stomach  full.  At  the  worst  it  does  odd 
jobs  and  carries  coftee-sacks. 


52  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

Every  third  man  you  meet  is  a  General ;  only  every 
tenth  General,  as  I  have  said  before,  gets  paid,  but  every 
General  tries  to  pay  himself.  The  pay  of  these  personages 
is  nominally  -^^140  per  amum  for  a  General  of  Division, 
and  ^^105  for  a  Brigadier!  The  sums  grow  less  in  ratio 
to  the  rank:  a  Captain  is  given  a  competency  of  i^i2, 
and  the  Private  wallows  in  the  wild  prodigality  of  about 
£2    I  OS  a  year — and  that  not  always  forthcoming. 

When  you  know  how  the  Haytian  soldier  is  paid,  you 
know  how  Hayti  is  governed.  The  principle  is  one  and 
indivisible.  The  paymaster  takes  toll  of  the  50  centimes 
and  passes  it  on  to  the  fir.st  General.  The  first  General, 
who  is  a  very  big  General  indeed,  hands  it  on  in  slimmer 
bulk  to  the  second  General.  He  in  his  turn  transfers  it, 
further  diminished,  to  his  next  in  command.  The  Captain 
lightens  it  lest  it  should  be  too  heavy  for  the  Lieutenant 
to  carry,  and  the  Lieutenant,  not  liking  to  break  the  chain 
takes  his  own  discount ;  thus  the  soldier  who  receives  five 
centimes  is  in  luck ;  he  who  gets  ten  is  a  favourite  of  the 
gods.  And  when  at  last  he  has  pocketed  it,  his  Lieutenant 
comes  along  and  wins  it  off  him  at  the  universal  game  of  dice. 

This  sounds  very  grotesque,  but  it  is  none  the  less  sober 
truth.  Nor  is  it  a  matter  of  isolated  instances;  it  happens 
every  week  as  regularly  as  pay-day  comes,  and  will  in  all 
probability  go  on  happening  every  week  as  long  as  the 
Black  Republic  endures. 


THE  HAYTIAN  GENERAL.  53 

"Big  fleas  have  little  fleas  upon  their  backs  to  bite  'em,  " 
so  we  say,  but  Hayti,  as  her  custom  is,  twists  the  order 
round,  for  the  smallest  flea  is  the  soldier,  and  upon  him 
feed  a  whole  series  of  larger  fleas. 

There  are  more  ways  than  one  of  extracting  sustenance 
out  of  him,  as  witness  the  following  case  which  occurred 
quite  recently.  A  countrywoman  brought  into  market  the 
best  yield  of  her  plantation.  By  sale  and  barter  she  accu- 
mulated a  good  store  of  provisions,  and,  being  feeble,  hired 
a  sample  of  the  ubiquitous  soldier  to  carry  her  possessions 
to  her  mules  some  half-a-mile  away.  The  soldier  walked 
in  front  of  her,  and  all  went  well  until  she  met  an  acquain- 
tance in  the  street  and  stopped  to  exchange  gossip.  The 
old  lady  was  interested,  and  the  soldier,  for  once  finding 
himself  able  to  nip  a  smaller  flea  than  himself,  seized  the 
opportunity  to  decamp  to  his  arrondissement  with  the  loot. 

On  arrival  he  awoke  his  sleeping  comrades,  others  left 
off  gambling  for  the  moment  at  the  rare  prospect  of  food, 
and  the  whole  guard  set  to  work  to  divide  the  spoil  and 
to  put  the  butter,  the  pork,  and  the  rum  beyond  the  reach 
of  their  original  owner.  But  while  they  were  engaged  in 
tearing  open  the  second  tin  of  butter,  the  Lieutenant  of 
the  post  hove  in  sight.  Now  when  an  officer  sees  a  soldier 
with  a  sufficiency  of  provisions  he  naturally  jumps  to  the 
conclusion  that  they  must  have  been  stolen ;  therefore  the 
Lieutenant,  having  listened  to  two  minutes  of  fluent  lying. 


54  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

went    off  post-haste    to    acquaint   the    General   next  above 
him  with  the  condition  of  affairs. 

This  General  was  a  prompt  man.  He  lost  no  time  in 
committing  the  Lieutenant  to  prison  for  not  having  appro- 
priated the  food  and  brought  it  at  once  to  him.  Then  he 
got  a  horse,  galloped  down  to  the  post,  sent  the  guard  off 
to  jail  in  bulk,  and  carried  the  whole  plunder  to  his  own 
house.  But,  unluckily  for  that  energetic  individual,  the 
story  got  abroad,  and  a  certain  still  more  highly  placed 
black  General  despatched  a  message  to  say  that  the  butter, 
rum  and  pork  would  be  just  as  safe  under  his  care  as  any- 
where else.  Such  hints  from  a  superior  in  Hayti  are,  like 
royal  invitations,  not  to  be  refused. 

The  peasant  woman  returned  home  empty,  the  soldier 
gained  a  few  mouthfuls  of  food  and  prison,  the  Lieutenant 
prison  only ;  the  first  General  gained  the  sense  of  com- 
placency consequent  on  possession  for  the  space  of  an  hour, 
while  the  biggest  flea  of  all  pouched  the  booty  that  had 
come  up  the  long  military  ladder  to  enrich  one  of  the 
highest  in  the  land.  There  can  be  no  doubt  if  the  old 
lady  ever  applies  for  her  own  (which  is  unlikely)  she  will 
also  be  put  into  prison  for  losing  it. 

There  is  no  conscription,  and  the  battalions  are  recruited, 
not  by  any  regular  enforcement  of  law,  but  by  a  system 
of  press-gangs  armed  with  the  cocomacaque.  A  young 
English    subject,    black,    about  eighteen  years  old,  was  im- 


THE  HAYTIAN  GENERAL.  55 

pressed  in  this  manner  recently.  He  objected  on  the  ground 
of  his  nationah'ty,  but  the  recruiting  party  cared  not  at 
all  for  that,  and,  after  beating  him,  flung  him  into  jail. 
He  was  of  course  released  on  the  representations  of  his 
Consul. 

There  is  another  evil  which  pervades  the  army,  and  that 
is  the  influence  of  the  Papaloi.  At  Vaudoux  sacrifices 
the  soldier  class  is  always  well  represented.  This  statement 
is  not  upon  hearsay  evidence.  I  have  seen  a  general  in 
uniform  kill  a  cock  in  honour  of  the  sacred  snake  under 
the  eyes  of  a  large  number  of  worshippers.  If  ever  it 
should  come  to  pass  that  the  Papaloi  were  to  order  one 
thing  and  the  authorities  another,  the  average  soldier  would 
be  extremely  likely  to  disregard  the  wishes  of  the  Govern- 
ment. He  objects  to  a  clubbing  exceedingly,  but  he  objects 
even  more  strongly  to  brave  the  wrath  and  vengeance  of 
the  unseen  powers  of  darkness,  whose  representatives  upon 
earth  he  believes  the  Vaudoux  priests  to  be. 

It  is  this  prevalence  of  the  Vaudoux  sect  which  aston- 
ishes you.  A  priestess  once  boasted  that  if  she  beat  the 
sacred  drum  in  the  centre  of  the  town  of  Port-au-Prince, 
few  even  of  the  highest  in  the  land  would  dare  to  disregard 
the  summons.  And  you  must  own  that  when  the  third 
part  of  the  spectators  of  the  ceremonies  is  made  up  of 
negroes  wearing  the  kepi,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  the  boast 
of  the  priestess  had  good  foundation  as  regards  the  army. 


56  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

The  tendency  of  the  soldiery  towards  these  horrible  and 
grotesque  superstitions  is  one  of  the  safeguards  of  the 
votaries  from  punishment.  You  may  set  a  thief  to  catch 
a  thief  if  the  first  thief  has  any  interest  in  so  doing,  but 
is  it  not  absurd  to  expect  to  stamp  out  snake-worship  by 
the  agency  of  snake-worshippers,  whom  instinct  inevitably 
throws  back  upon  the  primal  religions? 

Nevertheless,  although  the  Haytian  becomes  a  soldier  in 
spite  of  himself,  and  is  heavily  handicapped  by  circum- 
stances, he  is  astonishingly  free  of  one  serious  fault.  He 
may  be  on  occasion  a  bully  and  a  thief,  but  he  is  not  a 
drunkard,  although  he  could  get  cheaply  and  comfortably 
drunk  on  tafia  for  two  centimes.  With  steady  handling 
he  could  be  turned  out  a  first-class  fighting  man ;  as  he  is, 
however,  he  can  hardly  be  deemed  an  eft"ective.  Yet  the 
opinion  in  many  Haytian  circles  is  that  it  would  be  a  bad 
day  for  any  European  force  when  it  came  in  the  way  of 
the  Republican  troops. 

"They  would  fight  like  heroes,"  said  a  General  to  me, 
"these  brave  ones!  If  any  attacking  army  landed  in  this 
free  Republic,  they  would  without  doubt  instantly  drive  it 
into  the  sea." 

On  the  first  Sunday  of  each  month  a  review  is  held  on 
the  Champ-de-Mars.  On  the  particular  Sunday  when  I  had 
the  luck  to  be  present,  it  was  to  be  an  even  grander  review 
than    usual,    one    of  the    events   of  the  year.     The  earliest 


THE  HAYTIAN  GENERAL.  59 

intimation  of  the  great  doings  came  from  the  National 
Musical  Company,  whose  martial  strains  drifted  across  in 
the  glow  of  the  morning,  and  I  turned  out  to  see  what 
was  going  on. 

The  dusty  Champ-de-Mars,  with  its  fringe  of  white 
houses,  its  meandering  drains,  and  its  extensive  prospect 
over  calm  waters,  was  just  greeting  the  rising  sun.  The 
dew  was  yet  wet  upon  the  grass,  the  air  was  growing 
hotter  with  each  moment.  Beneath  us  the  town  was  spread 
out  in  a  chess-board  of  white  and  green,  and  afar  off  a 
few  ships  swung  at  anchor  in  the  fjord-like  bay. 

Distant  bugle  calls  tinkled  like  echoes  from  various  points, 
a  couple  of  Generals  met  together  under  a  tree,  and  soon 
dark  columns  of  soldiers  began  to  crawl  out  from  the  town 
below.  As  they  drew  nearer  I  saw  that  they  were  changed 
from  the  men  I  knew.  On  week-days  they  lounge  about 
the  streets  in  ragged  unkemptness,  but  on  review  days 
they  blossom  out  into  uniforms  of  gorgeous  colours.  Busy 
black  Generals  caracoled  ostentatiously  upon  their  flanks 
and  in  front  of  them,  as  they  marched  on  to  the  field  and 
formed  into  a  hollow  square.  The  town  was  now  stirring 
like  an  ant-heap,  and  giving  forth  a  broad  stream  of  people 
on  foot  and  in  carriages. 

Every  scene  has  its  dominant  note,  that  aspect  which 
first  strikes  the  eye  and  afterwards  lingers  longest  in  the 
memory.     Here  it  was  struck  by  the  negro  Generals.     There 


6o  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

were  three  hundred  of  them  at  the  least.  Pink  Generals, 
green  Generals,  blue  Generals,  and  Generals  clad  in  the 
paler  Cambridge  tint ;  the  plain  was  stiff  with  generals, 
score  upon  score,  important,  imposing,  each  in  a  web  of 
gold  lace,  each  mounted  upon  a  small,  long-tailed  but 
excellent  horse,  each  riding  well,  though  after  the  splay- 
footed fashion  of  his  race,  each  aware  that  the  eyes  of  the 
world  were  upon  him,  and  each  determined  upon  keeping 
them  fixed  there. 

They  galloped  hither  and  thither  across  the  open  square, 
they  ambled  along  the  ranks,  they  impressed  themselves 
obtrusively  upon  the  attention.  To  be  a  General  it  is  not 
necessary  ever  to  have  been  a  soldier  or  ofificer  of  lesser 
rank,  the  title  being  bestowed  for  political  purposes  or,  as 
an  article  of  the  Haytian  Constitution  has  it,  "  for  eminent 
services  rendered  to  the  State.  " 

The  assembled  troops  numbered  perhaps  2,000,  and  I 
judged,  from  the  diversity  of  equipment,  that  many  of  the 
thirty-eight  regiments  of  the  Republic  were  represented 
amongst  them.  There  was  a  fine  show  of  colour,  although 
there  were  also  deficiencies  in  the  matter  of  foot-gear  and 
rifles.  Not  a  man  of  them  all  stood  straight;  they  might 
have  been  galvanised  figures  jerked  into  position  by  some 
malignantly  humorous  intelligence.  Yet  you  knew  it  was 
a  great  occasion,  for  not  one  individual  was  eating  sugar 
cane,  a  height  to  which  discipline  rarely  soars. 


THE  HAYTIAN  GENERAL.  6i 

A  bugle  gave  notice  of  developments.  Generals  smoothed 
down  projecting  angles  with  their  horses  as,  riding  swiftly, 
General  St.  Fort  Colin,  the  Minister  of  War,  curveted  out 
into  the  golden  sunshine.  He  galloped  round,  a  word 
here,  a  sign  there,  and  even  as  he  finished  his  tour  of 
inspection  the  music  of  the  palace  band  heralded  the 
approach  of  His  Excellency  General  Tiresias  Augustin  Simon 
Sam,  President  of  the  Republic. 

The  palace  band  moved  forward  playing,  and  wonderfully 
well  they  played,  and  looked  v/ell,  too,  in  red  and  blue 
and  gold,  with  crested  caps.  After  them  came  the  President 
and  his  staff,  sixty  of  them,   Generals  all. 

They  rode  out  into  the  Champ-de-Mars  and  cantered 
round,  saluted  and  saluting.  General  Sam  was  in  uniform, 
and  his  charger  was  caparisoned  with  a  saddle-cloth  of 
crimson  and  gold.  He  rides  well,  and  has  a  soldierly 
bearing.  He  looked  not  only  the  head  of  the  army,  but 
the  most  soldierlike  man  in  it,  as  he  drew  up  under  the 
shade  of  some  trees  and  his  staff  wheeled  into  line  behind  him. 

Then    the    march    past    began,    led    off  by    the   National 

Musical  Company.     First  the  infantry,  men  in  red  trousers 

with    black    kits    and    red    blankets,    their    band    following ; 

squads  with  blue  jackets  and  red-tasseled  caps,  contingents 

more  or  less  numerous  in  various  blends  of  pink  and  green, 

blue    and    red,  with  touches  of  yellow  in  stripe  or  cord  or 
tassel. 


62  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

The  artillery  passed,  a  battery  of  five  guns  and  a 
Nordenfeldt,  each  drawn  by  a  single  mule.  Occasionally 
an  aide-de-camp  received  an  order  and  galloped  away  with 
it.  Three  or  four  times  a  standard-bearer  was  manoeuvred 
into  place  by  a  vociferous  General.  Once  a  woman  with 
a  basket  of  linen  on  her  head  was  hunted  off  the  ground 
by  another  General  in  light  green. 

Two  regiments  of  cavalry  belonging  to  the  bodyguard 
filed  by,  each  perhaps  200  strong,  the  first  in  gleaming 
brass  helmets,  the  second  chasseurs  in  blue.  So  it  went  on, 
colour  after  colour.  General  after  General. 

Little  can  be  said  as  to  the  deportment  of  the  troops. 
They  marched  in  step  to  a  certain  degree,  but  the  files 
lolloped  past  in  a  loose-backed  zigzag  that  would  have 
broken  the  heart  of  a  drill  sergeant.  Yet,  untrained  and 
unstiffened  as  it  was,  there  could  be  no  doubt  but  that  the 
right  material  was  there,  if  it  could  be  put  into  efficient 
hands. 

The  populace  was,  however,  pleased  with  the  performance, 
and  greeted  the  appearance  of  the  different  regiments  with 
that  singular  Oho  which  is  the  Haytian  exclamation  of 
approval ;  with  it  he  welcomes  everything,  from  a  lady  who 
is  fortunate  enough  to  please  his  critical  e}'e,  to  a  cab 
accident  in  the  street. 

Few  of  the  regiments  exhibited  their  nominal  strength 
of   250.     This    is    no    new    failing.     For   many  a  day  after 


THE  HAYTIAN  GENERAL.  63 

the  last  war  they  were  engaged  in  against  San  Domingo, 
the  President  of  the  period  was  wont  to  say  to  any  stranger 
who  remarked  upon  these  depleted  battalions:  "Ahl  they 
suffered  much  in  the  last  war!"  in  a  tone  which  gave  the 
hearer  to  understand  that  he  was  looking  upon  the  survivors 
of  a  later  Balaclava,  fought  out  desperately  among  the 
wooded  tropic  hills. 

But  tradition  has  it  that  the  only  people  those  heroes 
shot  in  any  number  were  their  own  officers,  at  the  orders 
of  the  then  Emperor  Soulouque,  who,  to  excuse  himself 
when  vanquished  by  the  Dominicans,  accused  his  staff  in 
bulk  of  having  betrayed  him,  the  army,  and  their  country. 

Hayti  supposes  herself  to  have  modelled  her  army  upon 
that  of  France,  only  in  this,  as  in  all  other  things  she  is  a 
caricature  rather  than  a  copy  of  the  original.  She  overdoes 
all  her  effects;  she  is  like  the  iwuveati  ricJic  who  bought 
an    old    oak  balustrade    and  had  it  overlaid   with   gold-leaf. 

At  length  the  last  General  of  all  the  Generals  had  saluted, 
and  the  columns  filed  away  into  smallness  down  the  road ; 
the  President  and  his  staff  trotted  back  to  the  palace  near 
by ;  the  grand  review  was  over ;  and  I  was  left  to  reflect 
upon  the  fact  that  Hayti  is  the  most  unconditionally  military 
State  in  the  world,  and  that  she  makes  no  account  of 
anything  beneath  the  rank  of  General. 

The  Haytian,  in  spite  of  his  huge  pretensions,  is,  however, 
not  naturally  a  soldier.     Drill  and  discipline  and  the  art  of 


64  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

war  are  mere  empty  sounds  to  his  ear.  From  his  point  of 
view  they  are  entirely  beside  the  question.  What  he  cares 
for  is  to  play  at  being  a  soldier ;  he  loves  the  accoutrement, 
the  uniforms,  the  gold  lace — especially  the  gold  lace.  He 
has  a  passion  for  military  titles,  military  bombast,  military 
display.  Even  on  his  postage  stamp  a  cannon  sprawls 
menacingly  in  front  of  his  crossed  flags ;  but  there  it  ends. 

He  brags  perpetually  of  his  patriotic  determination  to 
defend  the  last  inch  of  his  native  land  from  the  usurpation 
of  the  alien,  yet  he  allows  his  neighbour,  San  Domingo, 
to  push  the  frontier  between  the  States  farther  and  farther 
to  the  westward  without  offering  the  smallest  elTective  ob- 
jection. 

The  following  is  an  attempt  to  reproduce  a  conversation 
between  an  Englishman  and  a  trio  of  generals  after  the 
review. 

Scene.  The  piazza  of  a  palm-thatched  hut  in  the  hot 
tropic  evening.  The  open  space  in  front  represents  the 
village  street.  It  breaks  up  at  once  beyond  the  huts  into 
a  straggling,  loose-edged  bridle  path,  which  glints  in  the 
oblique  light  of  the  rising  moon  until  it  disappears  into 
the  forest. 

Dark  figures  move  to  and  fro  in  the  half-dusk  outside, 
and  crowing  cocks,  the  sound  of  horses  making  a  meal  ofT 
guinea-grass,  the  patter  of  donkeys,  disturb  the  silence  of 
the    night.     Three    consequential  Haytians   in    blue,    green, 


THE  HAYTIAN  GENERAL.  67 

and  pink,  thickly  netted  over  with  gold  lace,  are  seated 
smoking.  Also  an  Englishman.  Mosquitoes,  dust,  sand- 
flies, and  a  smell  of  coffee  mixed  with  rank  tobacco  smoke 
temper  the  sweetness  of  the  air. 

Haytian  (in  blue  uniform):   "General." 

The  other  two:  "Qui,  mon  General." 

Blue  General  (stretching):  "I  am  tired.  But  the  review 
of  to-day — what  a  great  spectacle!" 

Pink  General:   "  Oho  1  Assuredly,  a  great  spectacle!" 

Green  General;  "Without  question  the  most  magnificent 
spectacle  that  one  can  see." 

Englishman:   "I  was  much  interested." 

Blue  G  :  "Our  army  is  composed  of  brave  men.  The 
troops  are  the  finest  in  the  world!  Do  you  not  think  so, 
monsieur?" 

E,  (choosing  his  words):   "I  have  seen  none  like  it." 

Pink  G.  (who  is  fat,  with  streaks  of  yellow  on  the  bulg- 
ing whites  of  his  eyes):  "The  tenue,  the  discipline  of  the 
men  was  admirable!" 

Green  G. :  "  The  army  of  Hayti  is  one  which  reflects 
credit  upon  its  officers.    An  army  without  officers — what  is  it?  " 

Blue  G. :   "Nothing,  absolutely  nothing!" 

Pink  G. :  "The  army  of  Hayti  has  never  been  conquered! 
The  French  were  here :  we  drove  them  out !  The  English 
fought  with  us;  where  are  they?  But  we — we  — we  are 
here  always!     We  have  never  been  conquered!" 


68  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

Blue  G. :  "  It  would  be  impossible.  We  could  not  sur- 
vive it." 

Chorus :  "  It  is  true,  my  General,  for  in  that  case  we 
should  be  dead  !  " 

Blue  G. :   "But  the  Boers  will  conquer  the  English." 

Pink  and  Green  G's.  (together) :  "  Yes,  yes,  Ladysmith 
has  fallen.     The  Boers  have  captured  the  town." 

E. :  "Indeed?     When?" 

Blue  G. :   "To-day  or  to-morrow — it  goes  without  saying." 

E.  (with  relief):   "Quite  so." 

Blue  General  (puffing  out  his  chest):  "The  Boers  and 
we  Haytians  are  brothers.  We  also  have  fought  for  the 
independence  of  our  country.  They  are  a  bad  people, 
these  FLnglish." 

Pink  G.  (looking  at  the  E.) :  "The  blaiic  is  perhaps  an 
Englishman." 

Green  G. :   "The  blanc  is  an  American." 

Blue  G. :  "  Yes,  yes,  an  American.  I  have  always 
said  so." 

E. :   "Pardon,   Generals,  English." 

Blue  G.  (with  assurance):  "Yes,  yes,  English,  have  I  not 
said  so?" 

E. :  "I  am  sorry  to  find,  General,  that  )  ou  are  on  the 
side  of  the  Boers." 

Blue  G.  (shaking  his  fat  black  cheeks  in  vehement  de- 
clamation):    "What    would    you,  monsieur?     They  are   our 


THE  HAYTIAN  GENERAL.  69 

brothers,  these  Bo-o-ers !  If  I  were  fighting  for  them!  — 
But,  no,  I  am  here.  The  white  English,  they  would  crush 
the  Bo-o-ers !  " 

Chorus:    "But    they   cannot!     Vive  les  brave  Bo-o-ers!" 

E  :   "The  l^oers  are  white  also,   messieurs." 

Blue  G.  (not  to  be  taken  in) :  "  No,  no,  they  are  not 
white." 

E. :   "I  assure  you — " 

Blue  G. :  "The  lioers  live  in  Africa.  All  who  live  in 
Africa,  excepting  the  English,  are  black  men."  (The 
General  who  made  this  astounding  statement  was  an  ex- 
Minister  of  War.) 

Chorus :  "'It  is  true." 

K. :  "  On  the  contrary,  if  you  will  pardon  my  presump- 
tion in  mentioning  the  fact,  the  Boers  are,  undoubtedl}', 
white.  They  came  from  L^urope  in  the  first  place,  and 
took  the  land  from  the  Africans.  Now  the  English  are 
taking  the  land  from  the  J^oers." 

Blue  General :  "  The  English  are  brave  men.  I  say  so  1 
They  are  the  bravest  men  in  the  world.  The  Haytians 
conquered  them.  My  regiment — "  (At  this  moment  a 
bugle  call  resounds  in  the  village  street,  a  commotion  is 
to  be  observed  in  the  military  arrondissement  opposite. 
A  short  score  of  ragged  negroes  in  light- blue  coats,  and 
trousers  the  worse  for  wear,  tumble  lazily  out  and  form  up  in 
irregular  line  before  a  short,  goateed  black  with  a  little  sword.) 


70 


WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 


Pink  G. :    "  Monsieur,  see,  the  soldiers  of  the  Repubhc." 

E. :  "  How  many  men  such  as  these  could  his  Excellency 
the  President  put  into  the  field  at  a  week's  notice?" 

Pink  G. :   "  Twenty-five  thousand  1  " 

E. :  "An  army  indeed!  How  many  troops  were  present 
today  at  the  review  on  the  Champ  de  Mars?" 

Blue  G.  (not  to  be  behindhand):  "Ten  thousand."  (At 
the  outside  there  were  hardly   i,8oo.) 

Pink  G. :   "I  was  there." 

E. :   "I  observed  you  there.  General.     Your  horse  — " 

Pink  G. :  ■'  My  horse  r  Oho  1  that  is  a  horse  1  He  can 
go  a  hundred  miles  a  day." 

Blue  G.  (cutting  in) :  "  President  Sam  is  the  father  of 
the  army.  He  is  undertaking  reforms  which  will  make  our 
army  the  equal  of  the  first  armies  in  Europe.  Such  men 
as  ours — as  you  saw  to-day,  monsieur  —  can  do  anything. 
When  all  is  ready  we  will  drive  the  Dominicans  into  the 
sea,  and  the  whole  island  shall  be  ours!" 

Chorus:  "Vive  la  Republique." 

Blue  G. :  "  When  all  is  ready  we  will  send  officers  to 
Europe  to  show  the  French,  the  Germans,  and  the  English 
what  an  ofificer  can  attain  to." 

Pink  G. :  "I  will  then  go  to  Europe." 

Blue  G.  (with  excitement):  "  Oho  1  It  is  I  who  will  go! 
I  have  already  been  chosen.     I  am  of  the  cavalry." 

E.  (hurriedly  in  the  uproar) :  "  During  the  last  revolution — " 


THE  HAYTIAN  GENERAL.  71 

Pink  G.  (asserting  himself):  "  If  a  revolution  were  to  break 
out  I  would  proceed  at  once  to  the  place  and  put  a  stop 
to  it." 

Blue  G.  (with  quivering  cheeks)  :  "  I  also  am  not  afraid 
of  a  revolution." 

All  (clapping  their  hands  to  their  swords):  "Who  is 
afraid?" 


;^5SS^S^ifc^^JR« 


ABOUT    TO    1!E    REVIEWED. 

Blue  G. :  "Fear?  I  do  not  know  what  it  isl" 

Pink  G. :  "I  have  never  been  afraid.     And  you,  monsieur  ? " 

E. :   "I   have  been  afraid  very  often." 

Green  G.:  "If  you  feel  afraid,  talk!  It  will  do  you  good." 

E. :  "Having  seen  the  Grand  Review  to-day,  I  should  like 

to  hear  more  about  the  Haytian  forces.     Will  you  be  good 

enough  to  tell   me  something-  of  interest?" 


72  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

Pink  G.  (after  a  moment's  deep  thought):  "I  am  General 
of  Division." 

E.  (who  has  heard  it  rumoured  that  Generals  outnumber 
privates  in  the  Haytian  army,  wishes  to  set  the  question 
at  rest):   "How  many   men  are  in  your  command?" 

Pink  G.  (shrugging  his  shoulders  complacently) :  "I  do 
not  know.  But  what  matters  it?  Two  or  three  thousand, 
at  the  least." 

E.,  opening  up  a  fresh  subject,  speaks  of  Hayti  as  a  nation. 

Blue  G.  (aggressively):  "France  a  republic,  Hayti  a 
republic,  and  America  a  republic"—  (triumphantly  shaking 
three  fingers  in  E.'s  face) — "three  republics  1  " 

E.:   "You  have  been  to  Paris?" 

Blue  G. :  "I  will  go  next  month.  I  will  see  the  Expo- 
sition.    I  will  review  the  troops." 

(The  Pink  and  Green  Generals  join  in.  To  deepen  the 
impression  already  made  upon  the  P^nglishman  they  also, 
it  seems,  are  going  to  Paris  probably  next  month,  and  all 
three  launch  into  a  chaos  of  conversation.) 

Blue  G.  (surviving  the  chorus) :  "  Return  here  in  two  years' 
time,  my  friend.  You  will  see  changes.  Railways  will 
intersect  the  land.  The  army,  already  numerous,  will  be 
enormous.     And  I  shall  be  again  a  Minister!" 

As  this  seems  to  place  a  cap  upon  the  future,  the  En- 
glishman disengages  himself  from  his  companions  and  goes 
out   into  the  stockade,  where,  beneath  a  tamarind  tree,  he 


^I'HK  HAYTIAN  GENKRAL.  73 

finds  his  horse  making  frantic  efforts  to  fight  the  puissant 
steed  of  the  Pink  General.  He  on-saddles  and  rides  round 
by  way  of  the  piazza.  The  Pink  General  has  fallen  asleep 
open-mouthed,  the  voice  of  the  Blue  General  rumbles  on 
in  continuous  argument.  He  and  the  Green  General  are 
taking  a  friendly  "  Rhum "  together.  They  call  out  their 
adieux  as  the  h'nglishman  passes,  then  a  bend  of  the  track 
shuts  them  out  from  his  life  for  ever. 


CHAPTER     IV. 

.      VAUDOUX   WORSHIP   AND    SACRIFICE. 

Although  much  of  the  information  incorporated  in  the 
following  chapter  was  only  gradually  gained  during  the 
whole  period  of  my  stay  in  Hayti,  I  am  giving  it  an  early 
place  in  this  volume,  because  some  slight  knowledge  of 
what  Vaudoux  really  is  and  its  influence  upon  its  votaries 
is  indispensable  to  the  understanding  of  the  condition  and 
character  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Republic. 

For  Vaudoux  is  so  inextricably  woven  in  with  every  side 
of  the  Haytian's  life,  his  politics,  his  religion,  his  outlook 
upon  the  world,  his  social  and  family  relations,  his  pre- 
judices and  peculiarities  that  he  cannot  be  judged  apart 
from  it. 

The  underpart  of  Black  life  is  full  of  strange  beliefs.  In 
Hayti  the  nominal  religion  is  Roman  Catholicism,  but  it  is 
no   more  than  a  thin  veneer ;  beneath  you  find,  not  traces 


VAUDOUX  WORSHIP  AND  SACRIFICE.  75 

merely,    but    a    solid    groundwork    of   West    African  super- 
stition, serpent-worship,  and  child-sacrifice. 

This  last  assertion  may  seem  almost  incredible,  made  in 
connection  with  a  nation,  not  only  living  in  the  midst  of 
other  civilised  communities,  but  which  was  itself  started  a 
century  ago  on  the  double  lines  of  European  laws  and  a 
Christian  creed.  Nevertheless,  all  those  who  know  anything 
of  Hayti  by  personal  experience  and  residence  there,  know 
too  that  the  fact  has  been  amply  proved  over  and  over  again. 

Little  is  known  of  the  Black  Republic  outside  of  her  own 
shores,  and  even  at  home  her  policy  is  a  policy  of  keeping 
dark  everything  humiliating  to  her  pretensions.  The  natio- 
nal method  is  not  to  suppress  these  infamous  crimes,  but 
simply  to  deny  their  existence. 

The  evil  of  Vaudoux  worship  is  widespread.  The  Govern- 
ment has,  at  all  times,  been  too  unstable  to  care  to  take 
the  risk  of  seriously  opposing  so  powerful  a  combination. 
The  sect  is  universally  feared,  hence  they  carry  on  their 
rites  and  their  orgies  with  practical  impunity. 

At  the  root  of  this  outgrowth  of  superstition  are  the 
Papalois  and  Mamalois,  the  priests  and  priestesses,  who 
minister  to  the  naturally  credulous  mind  of  the  negro. 
Papaloi,  Mamaloi,  are  corruptions  of  "Papa  le  roi "  and 
"  Mama  le  roi,"  the  titles  themselves  showing  the  estimation 
in  which  these  people  are  held.  They  dwell  chiefly  in  the 
mountains.     A    famous    priest    lives    on   the  road  (save  the 


76  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

mark!)  between  Port-au-Prince  and  Jacmel ;  another  towards 
P\ircy ;  but  the  old  iniquity  who  is  more  especially  in  my 
mind's  eye  sojourns  in  the  sierras  not  so  far  from  the 
capital  itself. 

Vaudoux,  according  to  its  more  elect  disciples,  is  an 
all-powerful  deity,  but  the  idea  of  the  masses  does  not  rise 
above  the  serpent,  which  represents  to  them  their  god  and 
which  presides,  in  its  box,  over  all  their  services.  These 
usually  take  place  at  night  and  in  pseudo-secrecy.  They 
consist  of  dancing,  sacrificing,  feasting,  invocations,  and  a 
Delphic  delirium  on  the  part  of  the  Mamaloi,  winding  up 
with  scenes  of  an  indescribable  nature. 

There  are  said  to  be  two  sects  of  Vaudoux ;  one  which 
sacrifices  only  fruits,  white  cocks,  and  white  goats  to  the 
serpent-god ;  the  other,  that  sinister  cult  above  referred  to, 
whose  lesser  ceremonies  call  for  the  blood  of  a  black  goat, 
but  whose  advanced  orgies  cannot  be  fully  carried  out 
without  the  sacrifice  of  "the  goat  without  horns"  —  the 
human  child. 

White  is  supposed  to  be  the  sacred  colour  of  the  former, 
red  of  the  latter,  but  on  one  occasion  I  was  lucky  enough 
to  witness  a  Vaudoux  function  where  the  flags  and  hand- 
kerchiefs were  red  and  white,  pointing  to  an  intermingling 
of  the  two  forms ;  the  cocks  sacrificed  were  both  black 
and    white,    again    bearing    evidence  in  the  same  direction. 

Testimony    as    to    the    order    of  the    ceremonies  used  in 


VAUDOUX  WORSHIP  AND  SACRIFICE.  77 

Vaudoux  worship  differs,  but  this  is  not  be  wondered  at, 
being  the  natural  result  of  an  unwritten  ritual,  practised 
by  an  utterly  ignorant  people.  Each  writer  on  Hayti  gives 
the  order  at  secondhand  as  described  by  native  witnesses, 
and  probably  all  are  equally  right  as  regards  the  instance 
referred   to. 

For  my  own  satisfaction  I  noted  down  on  my  cuff  the 
sequence  of  the  rites  as  they  took  place  before  me.  Of 
these  I   will  give  a  detailed  description    later. 

The  serpent  used  by  these  fetish  sectaries  is  generally 
believed  to  be  the  Macajuel,  a  species  allied  to  the  harmless 
boa.  When  riding  in  a  remote  country  district,  I  met  a 
man  with  a  snake  of  this  kind  that  he  had  caught.  I 
offered  him  five  dollars  for  it,  which  he  refused.  The 
Haytian  peasant  is  very  poor,  and  five  dollars  is  for 
him  not  merely  a  windfall,  but  absolute  wealth,  and  he 
would  hardly  have  declined  it  without  strong  reason  for 
doing  so. 

Sir  Richard  Burton  speaks  of  the  "small  green  snake  of 
the  Haytian  negroes,  so  well  known  by  the  abominable 
orgies  enacted  before  the  Vaudoux  King  and  Queen." 
Today  the  green  snake  is  extinct  in  the  island.  More  than 
that,  no  white  man  I  met  would  allow  it  ever  existed,  and 
I  was  almost  beginning  to  think  that  Burton  had  for  once 
made  a  mistake,  when  a  certain  old  native,  whom  I  may 
describe    as    up    to    the   neck  in  Vaudoux,  told  me   certain 


78  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHrfE. 

facts  which  modified  my  conckision.  I  was  subsequently 
shown  a  green  snake  preserved  in  spirits. 

Whether  the  snake  enclosed  in  its  box  on  the  Haytian 
altars  of  to-day  during  a  child-sacrifice  is  of  that  species 
or  a  harmless  boa  it  is  impossible  to  say,  as  no  white  man 
has  ever  been  allowed  to  set  eyes  upon  one. 

Vaudoux,  Juju,  Obi,  or  some  analogous  superstition  seems 
to  belong  to  the  bottom  stratum  of  black  nature.  Vaudoux 
is  a  religion  of  old,  old  time.  When  William  the  Norman 
came  to  England  it  was  no  doubt  flourishing  amongst  the 
African  tribes  of  the  West  Coast. 

With  the  captured  slaves,  whose  descendants  the  Haytians 
are,  it  was  brought  to  this  distant  island,  and  here  it  is 
rampant  still.  It  raises  an  unshamed  head  in  all  quarters. 
The  last  President  was  even  said  to  be  a  votary.  A  large 
place  like  a  casino,  just  outside  of  Port-au-Prince,  is  devoted 
to  its  observances. 

But  Southern  Hayti  is  its  strongest  rallying-point,  and 
Jacmel  the  hot-bed  of  its  power.  All  along  the  road  be- 
tween the  town  and  Port-au-Prince  I  know  it  thrives  exceed- 
ingly. In  the  north,  at  Cap  Haytien,  on  the  contrary, 
the  traces  of  it  are  slighter. 

Vaudoux  is  cannibalism  in  the  second  stage.  In  the  first 
instance  a  savage  eats  human  flesh  as  an  extreme  form  of 
triumph  over  an  enemy ;  so  the  appetite  grows  until  this 
food    is    preferred    to    any    other.      The   next  stage  follows 


VAUDOUX  WORSHIP  AND  SACRIFICE.  79 

naturally.  The  man,  wishing  to  propitiate  his  god,  offers 
him  that  which  he  himself  most  prizes.  Add  to  this  sacrifice 
the  mysteries  and  traditions  of  the  ages,  and  you  have 
the  Vaudoux  of  to-day. 

Cannibalism  has  been  brought  as  a  very  general  accusa- 
tion against  the  Haytians,  but  although  there  is  no  doubt 
that  the  child  sacrificed  in  the  worst  Vaudoux  rites  is  after- 
wards dismembered,  cooked,  and  eaten,  I  do  not  think  that 
of  recent  years  the  practice  of  cannibalism,  unconnected 
with  sacrifice,  is  in  any  degree  prevalent,  although  it  is 
equally  certain  that  scattered  instances  do  still  come  to 
light.  The  Government  have  been  known  to  make  feeble 
and  spasmodic  efforts  to  punish  the  culprits,  but  as  a  rule 
this  iniquity,  as  well  as  most  others,  is  allowed  to  run  its 
course  unchecked. 

To  quote  a  case  or  two  of  these  judicial  attempts  at 
punishment: — A  woman  and  her  daughter,  convicted  red- 
handed  at  Jacmel  of  killing  and  eating  a  child,  were  mounted 
on  asses  and  beaten  round  the  town  by  the  police  with 
cocomacaque  clubs.  Afterwards  they  were  released.  Two 
years  ago,  in  the  northern  part  of  the  island,  a  party  of 
men  and  women  were  imprisoned  for  a  few  days  only  for 
the  same  crime,  which  they  indulged  in  as  a  conclusion  to 
a  Vaudoux  sacrifice.  But  this  crime  is,  I  both  believe  and 
hope,  on  the  decrease  and  may  in  time  die  out. 

Not  the  least  prominent  feature  of  Vaudoux  is  the  drum 


8o  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

that  calls  the  worshippers  together.  One  which  I  saw  and 
examined  was  four  feet  high.  Its  frame  was  made  of  some 
jointed  wood  like  bamboo,  in  girth  it  was  as  large  as  a 
man's  trunk.  The  upper  surface  was  of  black  goatskin, 
thinned  by  the  thrumming  of  many  fingers,  with  hair  still 
adhering    to  the  edges  where  it  was  pegged  to  the  frame. 

This  instrument  is  so  singularly  constructed  that  although 
at  a  distance  of  a  mile  or  more  it  sounds  loudly,  near  at 
hand  its  throbbing  note  is  indistinct  and  low. 

Where  the  negro  picked  up  this  secret  in  acoustics  it  is 
hard  to  imagine.  But  the  peculiarity  has  an  important 
use.  A  sect  with  rites  like  the  Vaudoux  have  naturally 
strong  reasons  for  desiring  that  none  but  the  initiated 
should  be  present  at  their  gatherings :  hence  the  low, 
misleading  sound  that  mutters  about  you  when  the  drum 
is  played  close  at  hand,  whereas  the  initiated,  who  have 
warning  of  a  sacrifice,  hear  the  call  at  really  wonderful 
distances,  and  at  once  proceed  to  the  appointed  spot. 

The  difificulty  of  following  up  the  dull  throb  at  close 
quarters  is  extraordinary.  On  several  occasions  I  have 
tried  to  trace  from  the  ear  alone  the  unmistakable  vibra- 
tion, and  have  failed.  There  is  some  thrilling  quality 
in  the  muffled  and  mysterious  beat  which  cannot 
be  described,  but  which  stirs  the  pulse  in  spite  of 
•familiarity. 

Hayti  is  the  sole  country  with  any  pretence  to  civilisation 


VAUDOUX  WORSHIP  AND  SACRIFICE.  8i 

where  a  superstition  contaminated  by  such  active  horrors 
exists.  It  would  seem  that  the  perpetuation  of  a  cult  so 
degrading  must  have  its  source  deep  in  the  character  of 
the  race.  Yet  you  find  that  these  undoubted  cannibals 
can  on  occasion  be  both  kind-hearted  and  hospitable. 
Perhaps  the  root  of  all  lies  in  their  squalid  ignorance. 

Then  whose  is  the  fault? 

The  answer  must  be  given  unhesitatingly.  It  is  the  fault 
of  the  Government.  Instead  of  rare  and  futile  demonstra- 
tions directed  against  some  outlying  evildoer,  they  should 
strike  at  the  Papalois,  who  are  the  heart  and  mainspring 
of  Vaudouxism.  Let  them  destroy  the  Papalois,  and  the 
whole  edifice  of  horror  will  crumble  to  pieces  of  natural 
decay. 

I  made  it  a  special  point  while  in  the  island  to  learn  as 
much  of  the  sect  as  possible,  to  get  at  the  truth  concerning 
them  by  personal  experience,  and  to  glean  actual  facts  at 
firsthand.  With  this  object  in  view,  I  more  than  once 
gained  intelligence  of  the  time  and  place  appointed  for  the 
performance  of  Vaudoux  ceremonies  and  sacrifices.  I 
wanted  to  see  for  myself  the  mysteries  of  snake-worship, 
and  by  good  luck  I  succeeded  to  a  certain  extent. 

On  the  first  of  these  occasions,  I  understood  that  I  must 

find    my    way    to    a    low    part  of  the  town  after  night  had 

fallen.      It    was    getting    on    towards    midnight    when    the 

mufifled    reverberation    of  a    drum   beating  a  swift  measure 

6 


82  ■■      WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

came  up  out  of  the  hot  darkness ;  no  wind  stirred,  and 
the  candle-flame  by  the  open  window  stood  up  straight  and 
unwavering. 

I  descended  into  the  evil  odours  of  the  street.  I  had 
heard  it  before,  that  droning  drum  music,  with  a  scream 
or  two  at  intervals,  which  in  Hayti  often  beats  upon  the 
overladen  pulses  of  the  night.  The  town  was  under  martial 
law,  but  passing  steps  were  stirring  up  the  ineffable  rubbish 
under  foot.  At  the  corner,  "Qui  vive.^"  from  a  soldier 
in  the  gloom,  but  a  small  coin  settled  the  matter  and  I 
passed  on. 

At  last  the  challenges  died  away  behind  me ;  the  carpet 
of  dirt  and  garbage  seemed  to  have  grown  thicker  below 
the  tread :  the  streets  were  unlit  even  in  the  best  quar- 
ters of  the  town,  and  therefore  to  keep  clear  of  drains 
and  arbitrary  pools  of  slime  was  almost  an  impossibility. 

Under  a  roof  a  concertina  was  playing  to  a  crowd  who 
oscillated  and  turned  in  dance  measure,  but  the  drum  was 
calling  from  somewhere  in  the  dark  twist  of  streets  beyond. 
Above  shone  the  serene  stars ;  beneath  them  the  negro 
and  negress  followed  out  their  scheme  of  life.  Past  booths 
crowded  with  talkers,  past  the  vending-places  of  rich,  un- 
wholesome sweetmeats  and  drink  in  coloured  bottles,  pausing 
occasionally  to  catch  the  vibration  of  the  drum,  across  an 
open  market-place  frilled  with  an  edging  of  empty  sheds, 
and  at  length  I  was  at  the  spot  described  to  me. 


VAUDOUX  WORSHIP  AND  SACRIFICE.  S3 

There  was  a  crowd  round  the  house,  peering  through  a 
window  at  the  doings  inside.  A  big  negro  stood  at  the 
door  with  a  cocomacaque  chib.  There  was  some  demur 
as  to  admittance,  then  the  door  opened  and  a  stream  of 
muffled  drum-music  and  a  monotonous  hum  of  voices  broke 
out  on  the  ear.  A  hand  beckoned  me,  and  I  found  my- 
self within.  The  shutters  were  closed,  and  it  was  difficult 
through  the  obscurity  to  make  out  one's  surroundings,  but 
I  felt  the  presence  of  a  crowd.  The  song  they  were  sing- 
ing their  forefathers  sang  two  hundred  years  ago  in  the 
riverland  of  Africa. 

Suddenly  a  negro  set  light  to  a  candle,  and  at  once  the 
scene  leapt  out  to  meet  the  eye.  The  song  ceased,  but 
all  mouths  still  hung  upon  its  final  note.  There  must  have 
been  upwards  of  two  hundred  people  in  two  small  rooms. 
They  were  ranged  round  the  walls,  those  in  front  sitting 
on  their  haunches,  leaving  only  a  narrow  passage  open  in 
the  middle  of  the  earthen  floor.  The  faces  were  glistening 
with  heat,  and  all  eyes  were  turned  towards  the  Mamaloi. 

The  silence  was  broken  by  an  abrupt  bark  of  the  drum 
and  the  chant  began  again,  the  sitting  figures  swaying  their 
shoulders  to  its  roll.  It  was  led  by  an  enormous  negress, 
wrapped  in  a  white  and  purple  print,  who  held  a  living 
cock  in  her  spatulate  black  fingers— you  could  see  the 
shining  of  her  uncut  nails.  She  sat  and  swayed  and  sang 
in    what    at    last    became    an    insistent   drone  of  sound.     It 


84  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

was  like  something  heard  through  a  delirium  of  fever,  you 
could  not  forget  or  escape  it  for  an  instant,  and  the  drum 
drove  it  through  the  brain  with  blows.  It  neither  waxed 
nor  waned ;  it  was  merely  the  same,  and  endless. 

Meantime  the  Mamaloi  danced,  back  and  forth,  forth  and 
back,  between  the  knees  of  the  worshippers.  She  was 
about  forty  years  of  age,  small-faced,  snub-nosed,  round- 
eyed.  She  gazed  past  you  with  a  rapt  stare,  a  streak  of 
foam  lay  across  her  chin.  For  covering  she  wore  a  thin 
white  robe,  tied  with  a  red  sash,  and  a  string  of  gold 
beads  gleamed  round  her  neck.  There  were  two  candles 
alight  now,  set  in  pots  and  decked  with  the  pink  flowers 
of  the  melon.  Beneath  them,  on  the  floor,  was  spread  the 
feast;  bottles  of  coloured  intoxicants,  Congo  beans,  ground 
rice,  and  red  melon.  At  intervals  the  Mamaloi  stopped  to 
sprinkle  water  over  them,  and  as  she  did  so  the  song  rose 
a  little  higher;  but  would  it  never  end,  never  end?  I  had 
time  to  notice  that  the  walls  were  ornamented  with  prints 
from  the  French  illustrated  papers.  Upon  how  many  strange 
scenes  do  those  pictures  look !  You  find  them  everywhere 
in  Hayti ;  in  the  drawing-rooms  of  the  rich  and  in  the  huts 
of  the  peasantry,  and  now  in  a  place  used  for  Vaudoux 
rites. 

The  song  rose  suddenly  in  volume,  a  candle  flickered 
and  burnt  up.  Still  the  Mamaloi  danced  between  the  rows 
of  knees  with  stealthy,  menacing,  tigerish  steps.    Her  excite- 


VAUDOUX  ^VORSHIP  AND  SACRIFICE.  85 

ment  was  intensifying,  her  eyes  seemed  to  grow  larger, 
but  they  never  met  yours.  As  she  danced  she  cleared  her 
throat  and  spat  with  a  noise  like  artillery  coming  into 
action.  The  huge  black  woman  in  the  centre  droned  on, 
and  to  the  drum-beat  was  added  the  chink  of  a  key  on 
metal.  The  Mamaloi  quickened  in  her  sinuous  dancing. 
The  heat  was  terrific ;  humanity  sweltered  there.  And  over 
all  presided  a  portrait  of  the  German  Emperor,  whose  eye 
I  seemed  to  catch  at  this  juncture. 

The  Papaloi,  a  small  and  filthy  old  man,  crouched  at 
one  side,  as  the  Mamaloi  caught  the  cock  from  the  hands 
of  the  big  woman,  and,  holding  it  by  the  neck,  flung  it 
over  her  head  and  shoulder.  Her  face  was  distorted  with 
frenzy ;  round  and  round  she  twisted,  accompanied  by  a 
swifter  measure  of  the  same  ciead  song.  She  laid  the  cock 
upon  the  heads  of  the  worshippers  and  began  to  whirl  more 
and  more  rapidly  to  the  hurrying,  maddening  drumming. 
Suddenly  she  straightened  her  arm,  spun  the  cock  round 
and  round,  its  flapping  wings  beating  impotently  upon  the 
air.  A  snowstorm  of  feathers  floated  up  as  she  stood  with 
rapt  eyes  and  bared  teeth,  twirling;  then  she  flung  up  her 
hand,  and  the  headless  body  flew  over  her  shoulder. 

Her  excitement  was  horrible ;  she  pressed  the  bleeding 
neck  to  her  lips,  and,  when  she  slowly  withdrew  her  hand, 
stood  for  an  instant  fixed  and  immovable,  her  lips  and 
teeth    stained   red.      Then  she  began  to  run  up  and  down 


86  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

screaming;  at  last  she  staggered  and  fell,  and,  with  the 
torn  neck  of  the  sacrifice  still  in  her  hand,  rolled  in  under 
the  feet  of  the  worshippers,  while  the  song  boiled  over  her. 

In  the  interval  various  fetishes  were  brought  out  of  a  box, 
uncouth  wooden  images,  stones  and  bones,  old  and  over- 
handled,  which  must  have  come  over  with  the  ancestors 
of  these  people  from  their  original  home. 

After  this  the  rites,  dancing,  sacrifice,  sprinkling  of  blood 
and  of  some  pungent  fluid,  which  was  certainly  not  perfume, 
followed  one  another  in  changing  order.  Six  cocks  were 
slain,  all  in  like  manner  to  the  first,  with  like  monotony 
and  brutishness.  One  of  them,  however,  was  the  chief 
sacrifice,  and  its  blood  was  set  apart  in  a  basin  by  itself. 
With  this  blood  the  Mamaloi  went  outside  and  sprinkled 
the  doors  and  gates,  putting  marks   upon  them. 

Then  she  returned,  and  with  the  remainder  sealed  the 
foreheads  of  those  present  with  the  sign  of  the   Cross ! 

This  intermingling  of  the  ancient  Jewish  and  Christian 
symbolisms  with  their  own  nauseous  ceremonies  springs,  of 
course,  from  their  acquaintance  with  Roman  Catholic  teaching. 
The  ignorant  are  always  ready  to  incorporate  the  worship 
of  any  other  god  with  their  own :  from  their  point  of  view 
it  can  do  no  harm,  and  may  do  some  good. 

After  a  time  the  frenzy  grew,  and  the  dancing  became 
universal.  The  whole  crowd  were  moving  and  swaying  and 
jostling  together,  chattering  out  the  unvarying,  monotonous 


VAUDOUX  WORSHIP  AND  SACRIFICE.  87 

measure.  The  chink  of  the  old  key  quickened  riotously, 
the  drum  thrummed  out  under  the  falhng  thumb-joints  with 
stimulating  haste,  the  mental  atmosphere  fermented  and 
rose  to  high  pressure.  They  swung  and  whirled,  they 
writhed  and  danced  in  an  intoxication  of  excitement. 

A  woman  was  contorting  herself  and  hissing  in  an  ill- 
lighted  corner.  Near  the  end  of  the  room  another  with  a 
child  at  her  breast  was  carried  away  by  the  seething  hysteria 
about  her,  and  began  to  shuffle  to  and  fro,  with  eyes 
distended  in  a  sort  of  sightless  stare.  There  was  hardly 
room  for  all,  and  the  drums  beat  faster.  The  child  at  the 
breast  began  to  stretch  its  arms  and  wail,  but  the  mother 
danced  blindly  on. 

Still  the  tumult  and  the  music  grew.  The  atmosphere 
was  suffocating,  but  there  was  no  symptom  of  tiring  or 
cessation.  On  and  on  and  on,  the  scene  with  its  savagery 
and  blood  and  senselessness  sickened  you.  When  at  last 
I  got  out  into  the  clear  starshine  once  more  I  felt  I  could 
not  have  endured  another  five  minutes  of  it.  Yet  what  I 
had  witnessed  was  only  the  beginning  of  an  orgie  which 
was  to  go  on   for  a  couple  of  da}'s  longer. 

The  belief  of  a  people  is  the  skeleton  on  which  its  char- 
acter is  moulded.  Here  in  Hayti  they  have  this  gigantic 
cult,  superstition,  call  it  what  you  will,  possessing  unbounded 
influence,  and  in  active  existence,  as  I  have  personally  seen, 
all    over    the    island.     The    tremendous    hold    it  has  gained 


88  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHLrE. 

over  the  people  is  proved  by  the  fact,  well  known  and 
amply  verified  on  many  an  occasion,  that  a  mother  will, 
under  the  orders  of  the  Papaloi,  give  up  her  own  offspring 
to  be  sacrificed.  When  reproached  with  inhumanity,  the 
reply  has  more  than  once  been  given :  "  Who  had  a  better 
right  to  eat  them  than   I  who  brought  them  forth?" 

No  picture  of  Hayti  will  remain  longer  in  my  memory 
than  the  remembrance  of  a  mean  old  man  in  grass  slippers, 
heel-less,  showing  a  long  half-foot  of  veiny  black  ankle  under 
the  faded  trouser,  the  upper  half  of  him  almost  bare,  the 
whole  topped  by  a  vinegar-coloured  face  graven  by  time 
and  wickedness  into  exaggerated  wrinklings.  He  had  wide- 
open,  far-away  eyes,  and  sparse  grey  hair  scattered  on  chin 
and  lip  and  head. 

He  was  a  Papaloi,  or  Vaudoux  priest,  otherwise  a  Haytian 
witch-doctor  and  medicine-man.  His  home  was  far  away 
up  in  the  mountains,  where  he  dwelt  as  a  patriarch.  He 
owned  four  palm-thatched  huts  within  an  enclosure  of  raw 
stakes,  where,  hidden  away  among  the  potato-green  foliage 
of  the  bush,  tamarinds,  bananas,  and  mangoes  ripened.  All 
day  long  he  sat  in  the  shade,  and  his  wives  waited  upon 
him.  There  were  four  of  them,  and  their  ages  ranged  from 
sixty  to  sixteen.  He  was  said  to  have  other  wives  else- 
where, but,  then,  he  could  afford  it,  for  he  was  a  man  of 
substance,  and  his  fame  was  great  in  the  land. 

In  Hayti  the  Papaloi  is  a  living  force.     He  is  at  once  a 


VAUDOUX  WORSHIP  AND  SACRIFICE.  8q 

high  priest  and  a  consulting  physician.  He  will  cure  the 
body,  and,  for  a  consideration,  touch  the  hidden  springs 
of  life.  People  are  very  much  afraid  of  him.  They  travel 
up  on  foot,  on  donkey-back  and  pony-back,  according  to 
their  stations  in  life,  from  the  plains  to  consult  him ;  and, 
for  payment,  he  will  use  his  hereditary  knowledge  on  their 
behalf.  He  can  cure,  and  he  can  kill,  and  the  two  are 
often  curiously  allied  in  his  practice. 

A  man  has  a  revenge  to  accomplish ;  he  seeks  a  Papaloi. 
He  is  the  victim  of  an  unrequited  affection,  he  seeks  the 
Papaloi.  He  is  sick,  he  seeks  the  Papaloi.  The  Papaloi 
is,  in  fact,  the  pivot  on  which  moves  much  of  Haytian  life. 
All  these  powers  over  mind  and  body  he  lays  claim  to, 
and  in  the  matter  of  love  some  of  his  cures  are  nasty 
enough,  but  there  is  one  thing  he  can  assuredly  do — he 
can  give  you  a  revenge  for  twenty  dollars  that  would  satisfy 
the  vindictiveness  of  a  Corsican  and  leave  him  a  balance 
of  remorse.  The  Papaloi  can  take  away  your  reason,  with 
or  without  pain,  at  will.  His  ancient  subtleties  of  poisoning 
are  unapproached.  Of  course,  he  winds  into  his  woof  much 
useless  mystery  and  ceremony  of  time  and  place  and  circum- 
stance. This  is  natural,  as  well  as  useful  and  politic,  for 
a  mere  dose  would  seem  of  poor  value  to  a  sickness-smitten 
negro  compared  with  a  remedy  to  be  swallowed  when  the 
moon  is  at  her  full,  with  mystic  rites  and  incantations  and 
the  bones  of  the  dead  thrown  in. 


90  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

Nor  is  the  white  man  outside  the  powers  of  the  Papaloi. 
Consider  the  simplicity  of  being  poisoned.  You  unwittingly 
offend  a  negro  and  he  takes  away  with  him  the  sense  of 
deadly  injury.  You  eat  and  drink  three  times  a  day,  and 
on  one  occasion  or  another  he  seizes  his  chance,  and  puts 
the  Papaloi's  prescription  into  your  food  or  drink.  Then 
sickness  grips  you,  ghastly  sickness,  and  you  are  far  beyond 
the  aid  of  doctors  of  your  own  colour.  Some  poison,  old 
as  the  world,  is  at  your  vitals.  You  must  infallibly  seek 
a  Papaloi  or  die.  Being  the  local  practitioner,  he  may  be 
the  very  man  who  has  poisoned  you.  For  twenty  dollars, 
or  perhaps  for  as  many  centimes,  he  has  brought  this  evil 
upon  you,  and  he  asks  a  liberal  advance  on  the  first  sum 
to  cure  you.  It  is  a  mere  matter  of  antidote.  No  man 
but  shudders  at  the  grasp  of  these  grim  powers,  they  are 
so  potent  and  so  hopelessly  irresistible.  You  pay  the 
Papaloi  fifty  dollars ;  you  would  pay  him  a  thousand  as 
readily  for  no  more  than  the  feeling  of  relief. 

To  his  credit  be  it  said,  he  usually  keeps  his  side  of  the 
contract ;  though  he  occasionally  uses  delay  to  extort  a 
little  more.  The  real  wonder  of  it  is  that  he  does  not 
spread  his  poisons  broadcast,  but  it  would  appear  that  he 
uses  his  power  not  for  play,  but  for  pay,  or  to  carry  out 
some  personal  resentment.  Once  an  attempt  of  this  kind  was 
made  under  my  own  close  observation,— a  little  something 
in  a  little  water-and-rum, — but  it  came  to  no  serious  issue. 


VAUDOUX  WORSHIP  AND  SACRIFICE.  91 

During  my  travels  in  the  interior  I  carried  a  water- 
bottle  of  military  pattern  topped  by  a  cup  of  black  vulcanite, 
which  was  padlocked  securely  over  the  neck.  In  this  I 
usually  carried  some  Haytian  rum  and  water.  On  one 
occasion  I  left  the  bottle  at  a  hut,  where  I  had  bought  corn 
for  my  horse,  while  I  went  down  to  the  river  to  bathe. 
On  my  return  I  started  with  my  guide  and  a  pair  of  vil- 
lagers. After  a  time  it  occurred  to  me  that  a  drink  all 
round  would  be  acceptable.  I  offered  it.  To  my  surprise 
it  was  somewhat  furtively  refused.  My  suspicions  were 
aroused,  and  I  also  went  thirsty.  I  afterwards  discovered 
that  some  vegetable  poison  had  been  put  into  the  bottle ; 
the  leathern  strap  padlocked  over  the  cup  had  been  stretch- 
ed, the  cup  turned,  and  the  poison  inserted.  I  could 
not  imagine  any  reason  for  the  attempt.  It  seemed  quite 
gratuitous.  Not  till  long  after  did  a  possible  solution  flash 
upon  me.  I  had  petted  a  little  plump  child  at  the  hut, 
which,  I  believe,  is  in  certain  cases  considered  unlucky. 
Perhaps  they  thought  I  had  the  evil  eye.  Certainly,  as 
the  Zulus  say,  my  snake  stood  up  beside  me  that  day.  I 
do  not  care  to  think  over  the  incident,  for  Haytian  poisons 
do  not  kill  painlessly,  and  I  was  alone  in  the  heart  of  the 
mountainous  interior,  miles  away  from  a  white  face. 

In    a    word,    secret    poisoning    pervades    the    scheme    of 
Haytian  life  exactly  as  it  pervades  that  of  West  Africa. 

There    was  an  English  engineer  at  Petit  Goave — he  has 


92  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

now  left  Hayti,  so  I  am  free  to  tell  the  story — who  dis- 
charged a  workman  for  a  serious  fault,  and  shortly  after 
left  the  place  for  Port-au-Prince.  Arrived  in  the  capital, 
his  legs  began  to  swell  with  all  the  symptoms  of  the  well- 
known  African  disease  beri-beri.  He  consulted  doctors,  but 
they  could  do  nothing  for  him.  Making  a  pretty  accurate 
guess  at  the  true  state  of  the  case,  he  at  length  sent  a 
messenger  to  the  Papaloi  at  Petit  Goave. 

The  Papaloi  demanded  fifty  dollars,  and  promised  for 
that  sum  to  effect  a  certain  cure.  The  Englishman  agreed 
to  pay,  and  the  Papaloi,  with  many  incantations,  prepared 
a  bath  of  leaves,  a  thick  brown  bath.  Into  this  the  sick 
man  was  plunged,  and  after  three  days  was  well  enough 
to  return  to  Petit  Goave.  But  the  beri-beri  returned,  and 
he  was  obliged  to  consult  the  Papaloi  once  more,  who  said 
that  he  had  again  been  poisoned,  and  that  for  a  second 
payment  of  fifty  dollars  he  would  again  cure  him,  at  the 
same  time  warning  him  that  if  he  were  poisoned  a  third 
time  he  would  probably  die.  The  white  man  took  the  hint, 
and,  as  soon  as  he  was  cured,  left  the  country. 

The  Papaloi  is  descended  straight  from  the  African  witch- 
doctor. Seven  generations  ago  he  was  a  secret  king  among 
the  slaves  of  French  Hayti ;  further  back  still  he  lived  in 
a  wattle  hut  by  the  Congo  and  made  Juju.  And  he  makes 
it  in  Hayti  to  this  day.  Here  and  there  in  talk  with  him 
you  stumble  across  some  older  African  superstition,  some- 


VAUDOUX  WORSHIP  AND  SACRIFICE.  93 

thing  from  which  you  could,  without  other  evidence,  deduce 
the  origin  of  his  race. 

There  is  another  operation  to  which  the  Papalois — or 
more  often  the  Mamalois — turn  their  power.  They  can 
produce  a  sleep  which  is  death's  twin  brother.  For  in- 
stance, a  child  marked  for  the  Vaudoux  sacrifice  is  given 
a  certain  drug,  shivers  and  in  some  hours  sinks  into  a 
stillness  beyond  the  stillness  of  sleep.  It  is  buried  in  due 
course,  and  later,  by  the  orders  of  the  Papalois,  is  dug  up 
and  brought  to  consciousness;  of  what  occurs  then  I  have 
written  in  another  place.  It  is  ghoulish  and  horrible,  but 
beyond  all  question  human  sacrifice  is  offered  up  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  in  the  Black  Republic  at  the  present  time. 

Everywhere  in  Hayti  you  find  charms  against  evil,  sold 
by  Papalois  and  Mamalois.  They  assume  all  shapes  — 
sticks,  stones,  rags,  and  bags  of  leaves.  I  remember  see- 
ing a  'bus,  as  they  call  the  local  cab,  overturn  in  Port-au- 
Prince.  The  first  thing  that  the  driver  scrambled  for  was 
a  nameless  bundle  which  had  fallen  from  under  the  seat. 
It  was  his  charm  against  being  upset  1 

Putting  Vaudoux  upon  their  enemies  is  another  variation 
of  the  priests'  accomplishments.  A  bundle  of  garbage  is 
placed  at  your  door,  and  if  you  pass  over  it  you  are  sure, 
the  negroes  say,  to  fall  ill.  So  far  the  thing  is  absurd, 
but  it  becomes  less  so  when  the  action  of  the  rotten  egg 
on    }'our    doorstep    is    aided    by    a    sprinkling    of  powdered 


94  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

glass  in  your  rice.  No  priestcraft  gains  so  firm  a  grip  of 
the  savage  mind  as  that  which  lends  solid  temporal  aid  to 
the  passions  of  its  devotees.  There  is  a  deep  desire  in- 
grained in  the  black  to  get  a  pinch  on  the  man  above 
him  ;  to  be  given  this  obscurely  and  surely  is  sufficient  to 
rivet  his  adhesion  to  any  faith.  Few  whites  in  the  island 
have  altogether  escaped  the  far-off  touch  of  the  Papaloi 
directed  against  them  for  some  inscrutable  offence  by  those 
who  are  most  probably  of  their  own  household. 

In  considering  the  character  and  influence  of  the  Papaloi, 
one  fact  should  be  borne  in  mind ;  that  he  is  the  sacrificial 
priest  when  the  most  culpable  and  hideous  of  the  Vaudoux 
rites  is  practised.  He  is  also  the  guiding  and  dominant 
intelligence  amongst  the  bulk  of  his  countrymen,  the  result 
of  which  must  be  a  continuous  falling  back  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  savage  state.  But  as  long  as  Hayti  retains 
an  entirely  negro  Government,  at  least  so  long  will  the 
shadow  of  the  Papaloi  loom  large  in  the  land,  for  Africa 
transplanted  is  Africa  still,  and  she  is  so  conservative  that 
the   passage    of  uncounted    years  finds  her  ever  the  same. 

The  Papaloi  is  the  rain-maker,  the  witch-doctor  of  West 
Africa  under  another  name.  He  is  a  kind  of  fortunate 
vagabond  battening  upon  the  ignorance  and  credulity  of 
this  New  World  negro.  He  is  dirtier  than  an  Indian 
fakir,  without  that  excuse  which  emanates  from  the  religion 
of    the    fakir,    to    whose    mind    our    precept    assumes    an 


VAUDOUX  WORSHIP  AND  SACRIFICE.  95 

inverted  form — with  him  dirtiness  is  next  to  godhness. 
But  the  Papaloi,  on  the  other  hand,  has  no  religion  in  his 
dirt;  he  is  filthy,  because  to  be  clean  is  troublesome.  And 
the  Papaloi  possesses  a  treble  share  of  the  universal  laziness 
of  the  children  of  Ham. 

Rut  he  is  not  a  subject  to  jest  at.  His  power  is  par- 
amount throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  Republic  ; 
he  rules  with  an  iron  hand,  and  with  that  jealous  insidious 
grasp  on  the  whole  inner  life  of  his  fellow-countrymen 
which  is  everywhere  the  distinctive  trait  of  priestcraft. 
From  the  highest  to  the  lowest  all  yield  him  obedience; 
it  is  true  the  majority  believe,  but  the  minority,  who  do  not 
believe,  at  least  tremble.  The  whole  land  is  netted  over 
with  fear,  fear  of  vague  and  occult  potencies  that  harass 
and  harm  and  hurt,  and  in  case  of  revolt  inevitably  kill. 

Remove  the  Papaloi  and  the  murders  and  superstitious 
observances  would,  to  a  large  extent,  die  out,  and  the  land 
shake  off  the  influence  which  keeps  it  so  degraded.  The 
debasing  consequences  of  kindred  superstitions  acting  on 
the  negro  mind  is  keenly  recognised  in  other  countries 
where  the  black  man  does  not  rule  himself.  Among  the 
American  negroes  the  rites  of  Voodoo,  Voudoo,  Vaudoo, 
Vaudoux — you  can  spell  it  as  you  like — are  carried  on  in 
secrecy,  and  sedulously  screened   from  light  of  day. 

In  Jamaica  the  punishment  for  the  practice  of  Obeah  is 
imprisonment  and  whipping,  the  latter  having  a  wholesomely 


96  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHFrE. 

deterrent  effect.  For,  though  Obeah  is  to  its  Haytian 
variant  as  water  is  to  wine,  the  danger  of  it  lies  in  the 
fact  that  if  unchecked  it  would  only  too  easily  merge  into 
the  enormities  and  crimes  which  distinguish  true  Vaudoux 
worship.  Obeah  is  a  cult  of  charm-wearing,  of  love-potions, 
of  the  laying  on  of  curses  by  means  more  or  less  absurd, 
such  as  the  tying  of  a  bunch  of  red  rags  to  a  branch  near 
your  door,  or  hanging  up  a  beer  bottle  filled  with  nasty 
concoctions,  all  of  which  go  to  prove  its  kinship  in  a  puny 
degree  with  the  hideous   Haytian  sect. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  it  is  the  Papaloi  who  is  the 
instigator  and  upholder  of  the  vilest  forms  of  snake-worship, 
and  they  can  be  carried  on  by  him  with  practical  impunity. 
When  some  grosser  case  than  usual  forces  itself  upon  the 
public  notice  it  is  never  the  priest  who  suffers.  The  vic- 
tim is  always  some  obscure  votary,  never  the  arch-criminal, 
who  is  too  powerful  for  the  Government  to  interfere  with. 
A  couple  of  unknown  women,  or  a  group  of  poverty-stricken 
peasants,  will  be  maltreated  or  imprisoned,  or  even  on 
occasion  shot,  while  the  Papaloi  is  permitted  to  go  scot-free. 

If  you  are  a  black  man,  either  you  belong  to  the  sect 
and  are  under  deadly  compulsion  to  perform  the  behests 
of  the  Papaloi,  or  else  you  are  not  of  the  sect,  and,  as  its 
supposed  enemy,  are  exposed  to  equally  deadly  dangers. 
It  is  thus  very  evident  that  in  a  land  publicly  christened 
with  the  names  of  Liberty  and  Brotherhood  no  man  is  free. 


VAUDOUX  WORSHIP  AND  SACRIFICE.  97 

The  mysterious  weapon  of  poison — which  can  kill  body, 
or  mind,  or  both,  or  merely  cause  long  languishing  and 
pain  —  is  one  against  which  no  man  can  at  all  times  guard 
himself.  And  this  is  the  chief  weapon  the  Papaloi,  with 
his  pre-eminent  knowledge  of  vegetable  venoms,  is  apt  to  use. 

To  give  yet  another  illustration.  I  knew  a  negro  in  the 
Triburon  peninsula  who  was  not  of  the  sect  of  the  Vaudoux. 
He  was  at  one  time  a  white  man's  servant;  he  stood  be- 
tween his  master  and  harm,  and  he  was  not  to  be  bribed. 
Nor  did  he  buy  charms  to  wear  round  his  neck  or  inside 
his  shirt.  Hence  it  was  prophesied  tiiat  he  would  not 
remain  long  in  the  employment  he  then  held.  He  never 
knew  where  he  drank  it  for  certain,  but  drink  it  he  did, — a 
malignant  drug.  It  had  its  effects  swiftly.  He  rolled  in 
the  gutters.  He  stared  at  the  sun  with  vacant  eyes — to 
use  his  own  expressive  words:  "My  head  was  filled  with 
boiling  blood."  His  master  noticed  his  condition,  and  sent 
him  to  a  white  doctor,  who  gave  him  civilised  medicines, 
which  had  no  effect  whatever.  At  last  he  was  taken  to  a 
Papaloi  in  the  mountains,  who  gave  him  a  compost  of 
drugs  in  an  earthen  jug.  He  ate  of  it,  and  was  cured. 
He  had  paid  his  tax  to  the  powers  of  darkness  and  of  the  soil. 

Even  in  the  highest  places  the  hand  of  the  Papaloi 
makes  itself  felt.  Since  it  is  a  matter  of  public  notoriety 
that  he  can  kill  his  enemy  in  a  number  of  painful  ways, 
none  dare  offend  him.     He  is  a  licensed  criminal. 

7 


98  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHrfE. 

Occasionally  he  will  admit  to  the  white  man  that  he  is 
a  bit  of  a  fraud,  but  for  the  most  part  he  keeps  up  appear- 
ances. How  much  he  believes  in  his  own  pretensions  or 
in  Vaudoux  as  a  religion  it  is  impossible  to  guess.  He 
uses  both  to  forward  his  own  ends.  He  seldom  has  a 
tendency  towards  discussion.  His  argument  in  favour  of 
the  sacred  snake  is  old  as  the  hills.  "You  have  an 
enemy,"  he  says,  "who  is  not  a  snake-worshipper.  I  will 
put  Vaudoux  upon  him.  If  his  god  be  stronger  than  mine, 
he  will  save  him."  Afterwards  poison  is  conveyed  into  the 
victim's  food,  and  when  the  man  dies  the  Papaloi's  disciples 
agree  that  the  serpent  is  a  great  god  indeed. 

The  Papalois  feed  like  leeches  upon  their  negro 
following.  The  country  is  honey-combed  by  that  system 
of  terrorism.  The  profession  is  not  necessarily  hereditary, 
although  the  son  often  follows  in  the  footsteps  of  his  father. 
The  knowledge  of  poisons,  which  is,  after  all,  their  stock-in- 
trade,  passes  down  through  the  generations,  nor  will  they, 
any  more  than  the  Indian  jugglers,  divulge  any  particle  of 
their  secret  lore.  These  priests  are  no  doubt  to  a  certain 
extent  hypnotists.  They  achieve  the  unexplainable.  And, 
of  course,  what  is  to  us  a  trick  is  to  the  savage  mind  a 
miracle. 

In  full  dress  a  Papaloi  makes  at  once  a  grotesque  and 
an  alarming  figure.  His  piecemeal  vestments  are  red,  the 
sacred    colour ;    his    aged    face,    bandaged  about  the  brows 


VAUDOUX  WORSHIP  AND  SACRIFICE.  99 

with  a  red  handkerchief,  peers  out  malignantly.  It  is  he 
who  in  the  course  of  the  ceremonies  initiates  the  hysteric 
fervour  and  dehrium  of  the  priestess  and  the  worshipping 
crowd ;  it  is  he  again  who  leads  the  orgies  into  frenzied 
and  horrible  excesses  which  it  is  impossible  to  describe. 
These  orgies  continue  for  three  or  four  days  at  a  time, 
and  their  result  must  infallibly  lead  to  the  continuous 
debasement  of  the  national  character. 

There  is  no  doubt  also  that  the  priests  prompt  the  action 
of  the  'Toup-garous",  the  child-stealers,  who  are  usually 
women,  generally  old,  pilot-fishes  to  the  priestly  sharks. 
The  Papaloi  chooses  the  victim,  but  it  is  the  "  loup-garou  " 
who  steals  it  or  otherwise  secures  it.  The  drugged  child 
is  borne  away  to  some  secure  place,  be  it  a  hut  in  the 
centre  of  a  town  or  in  some  lonely  forest  clearing.  The 
little  body  bears  all  the  appearance  of  death,  and  so  it  is 
allowed  to  remain  until  the  appointed  time,  when  an  antidote 
to  the  sleeping  drug  is  given,  and  the  dazed  child  wakes 
to  become  the  central  figure  in  a  tragedy  of  sacrifice. 

What  are  the  three  galls  of  this  priest-ridden  people? 

First,  there  is  superstition.     Who  keeps  it  alive? 

Next,  there  are  the  impure  and  tragical  rites.  Who 
instigates  them  ? 

Lastly,  there  is  the  opposition  to  all  enlightenment.  Who 
obscures  the  light? 

In  every  case  the  answer  is  the  same.     The  Papalois. 


loo  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

Their  own  manner  of  life,  their  traditions,  their  very 
appearance,  their  budget  of  endeavours  are  all  mean,  self- 
seeking,  squalid.  They  have  absolutely  no  good  point, 
no  clean  impulse ;  no  characteristic  that  you  can  even 
distantly  respect. 

It  is  well  to  understand  exactly  the  position  these  men 
occupy  in  Hayti.  In  the  unhealthy  atmosphere  which  they 
create  evil  becomes  alive  and  flourishes.  They  encourage 
the  worst  tendencies  innate  in  negro  nature  as  assiduously 
as  a  gardener  nourishes  his  forcing-beds.  They  permeate 
Hayti  with  their  influence.  Until  they  are  smitten  down 
the  country  can  never  flourish. 

At  present  the  greatest  obstacle  to  an  almost  universal 
terrorism  is  the  sprinkling  of  white  men  dwelling  in  the 
coast  towns.  The  better  Haytians  are  ashamed  of  Vaudoux, 
but  they  are  afraid  of  its  revenge.  The  Government  are 
either  unwilling  or  unable  to  cope  with  it.  In  West  Africa 
the  first  endeavour  of  the  advancing  white  is  to  break  the 
rule  of  the  witch-doctors,  and  they  succeed  in  so  far  that 
superstition  moves  slowly  backwards  into  the  heart  of 
Africa.  But  in  Hayti,  instead  of  meeting  with  relentless 
opposition  the  Papaloi  meets  with  tacit  encouragement,  or 
at  best  a  puerile  interference,  with  results  such  as  I  have 
even  now  only  partially  shown.  As  the  case  stands,  were 
one  to  subtract  the  very  small  white  element,  his  authority 
would    increase    fourfold.     And    it    is    in    the    mountainous 


VAUnOUX  WORSHIP  AND  SACRIFICE.  loi 

interior,    where    no    white    man    goes,    that    his    autocracy 
reaches  its  high  water  mark. 

But  it  is  absurd  to  pretend  that  the  Papaloi  possesses 
supernatural  powers,  though  I  would  not  deny  for  a  moment 
that  he  has  inherited  certain  knowledge  which  seems  at 
present  to  lie  outside  the  white  man's  range.  He  is  a 
Borgia  in  poisons,  and  to  fill  in  the  rest  of  his  hollow 
pretensions  he  is  an  actor,  a  colossal  quack,  and  a  terrorist. 


CHAPTER    V. 


THE   HAYTIAN    NAVY. 


Most  nations  keep  a  navy  to  fight  against  their  foes. 
In  this  extraordinary  country  the  navy  couples  that  mission 
with  the  high  honour  of  being  a  potential  factor  towards 
either  internal  peace  or  war.  The  case  stands  thus.  Hayti 
is  a  place  somewhat  given  over  to  political  strife ;  a  country 
in  which,  as  has  been  said  of  Mexico,  "  all  things  are  pos- 
sible, and  most  things  come  to  pass,"  a  country  in  which 
an  enterprising   man  can  easily  bring  off  a  coup  d'etat. 

For  the  last  eleven  years  there  has  been  no  bloody 
revolution  such  as  the  past  has  so  often  seen,  but  there 
have  been  two  or  three  attempts  to  upset  the  Government, 
and  under  Hippolyte  a  good  deal  of  quiet  shooting.  Port- 
au-Prince  might  quite  conceivably  go  to  sleep  under  one 
Government,  and  wake  up  under  another.  But  to-day  the 
capture  of  the  Capital  would  only  be  equivalent  to  carrying 


THK  HAYTIAN  NAVY.  103 

the  entrenchments  of  a  fort — the  inner  bastions  would  still 
remain,  and  the  navy  answers  to  the  bastions. 

You  may  see  it  every  day  at  anchor  in  the  harbour, 
four  ships  in  a  line.  One  presented  a  sufficiently  ghastly 
aspect,  its  tubby  white  sides  being  splashed  and  smeared 
with  red  paint  in  a  manner  horribly  suggestive  of  human 
blood.  This  was  the  "  Dessahnes  ",  and  as  she  remained  in 
the  same  unsightly  condition  during  the  whole  period  of 
my  stay  in  Port-au-Prince  I  incline  to  believe  that  the  Hay- 
tian   Navy  had  run  out  of  paint. 

But  the  show  ship  is  the  "  Crete-a-Pierrot  ",  the  third  in 
the  line  that  runs  across  from  the  lighthouse  to  the  Bizoton 
side  of  the  bay.  She  is  a  fat,  white  vessel  with  a  yellow 
funnel  and  gold  scrollwork  upon  her  bows  and  stern,  and 
over  her  floats  the  angry  blue  and  red  of  the  Black  Re- 
public. Away  on  the  lighthouse  side  is  the  "  Toussaint ",  a 
cargo  steamer  of  chequered  career ;  once  a  fruit  boat,  next 
a  Haytian  warship,  now  a  sad  example  of  the  pilfering 
habits  of  the  personnel  of  the  navy.  In  the  words  of  the 
bull-necked,  slouch-hatted  mate  of  an  American  sailing  ship  : 
"They're  a  set  of  thieves.  You  wouldn't  believe,  but  I've 
had  niggers  off  that  ship  come  here  with  brasswork  they've 
scofted.  Yes,  and  boiler-fittings — anything,  any  blooming 
thing  for  which  they  thought  they'd  get  a  red  cent.  Why, 
I  know  a  captain  in  this  trade  who  was  offered  fittings  that 
must  have  cost  this  chirruping  black  Government  thousands 


I04  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

of  dollars,  for  any  bid  he  liked  to  make.  Jes'  you  go 
and  see  I" 

And  so  it  was.  A  few  boys  lived  hugger-mugger 
in  the  stripped,  deserted  hulk,  the  tides  beat  a  tattoo 
on  her  rotten  skin,  and  she  was  full  of  rats  and  empty 
noises. 

Then,  having  seen  the  worst  of  the  Haytian  Navy,  I 
decided  to  go  and  see  the  best  of  it.  Therefore  upon  a 
certain  December  morning  an  ancient  rowboat,  propelled  by 
the  united  exertions  of  two  small  negroes,  crawled  slowly 
out  upon  the  lazy  blue  waters   of  Port-au-Prince  Bay. 

"■Blanc,  which  sheep  you  go  for?" 

*'  There's  an  Englishman  in  command  of  one.  Put  me 
on  board  of  her." 

The  pink  conch-shells,  the  sucking  fish,  and  the  lump 
of  white  coral  loaded  down  the  old  leaky  boat.  At  some 
risk  of  up-setting  it  was  pulley-hauled  out  towards  the 
centre  of  the  bay  where  the  "  Crete-a-Pierrot "  lay  blistering 
under  a  scalding  sun.  She  was  designed  at  the  request  of 
the  Haytian  Government  in  England.  The  plans  in  due 
time  were  forwarded  to  Hayti,  where  one  Minister  took 
upon  himself  to  move  the  ward-room  a  few  yards  forward, 
and  another  thought  the  engine-room  might  with  great 
profit  to  the  Republic  be  shifted  a  {&\\  feet  to  starboard. 
When  they  had  had  their  will  of  them,  the  revised  plans 
were    sent    back    to    the  designer,  who,  so  the  story  goes, 


THE  HAYTIAN  NAVY.  105 

said  that  either  he  or  the  Haytian  Government  must  design 
the  ship.  In  the  event  they  thought  it  well  to  leave  it  to 
him.  So  the  end  of  it  was  that  the  "  Crete-a-Pierrot "  was 
finished,  built  in  England,  armed  in  France,  and  three 
years  ago  was  added  to  the  Haytian  Navy. 

''Blanc,''  said  the  small  negro,  "the  Anglais  is  leaving 
the  sheep."  And  through  the  dancing  heat-haze  I  saw  a 
white  gig  being  manned ;  a  figure  descended  the  gangway, 
the  squeak  of  rowlocks  followed,  and  the  boat  slipped  out 
from  the  warship's  shadow. 

With  a  gasp  and  a  gurgle  my  boat  gathered  more  way. 
I  had  not  braved  the  sun  and  the  unsavoury  approaches 
to  the  wharves  for  nothing,  and  another  opportunity  of 
catching  the  English  commander  might  not  readily  present 
itself.  The  warship's  gig  came  on  with  laborious  strokes. 
and  when  within  hailing  distance : 

"May  I  go  and  take  a  look  over  your  ship,  sir?" 

"Hey,  what's  that.'     Got  a  pass  from  the  admiral .f'" 

"Afraid   I  haven't." 

"They  won't  let  you  aboard  without." 

"Thanks,  sorry  to  have  troubled  you." 

There  was  a  silence.  Then  Captain  Gilmour  drew  out 
his  watch. 

"I've  a  few  minutes  to  spare.  I'll  come  back  and  show 
you   over." 

It    took    some    moments    to    get    my    boat   alongside  the 


io6  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

gangway.     Rarely    has    a    foreign    navy  been  visited  in  so 
unimposing  a  craft. 

Captain  Gilmour,  R.  N.  R.,  is  a  Scotsman  who  served 
in  the  Ashanti  business,  and  is  now  under  contract  with 
the  Haytian  Government  to  command  their  best  warship. 
He  is  a  sunburnt,  kindly  man,  who  takes  a  very  real  interest 
in  his  work. 

"You  are  heavily  armed,"   I  said,   looking  round. 

"Why,  yes.  Gunner!"  A  grinning  black  stepped  for- 
ward and  opened  the  breech  of  a  big  gun.  It  shone  clean 
and  oily.  "We  are  pretty  heavily  armed,  as  you  say. 
For'ard  there  we  carry  a  sixteen  centimetre  gun.  This  is 
a  twelve,  and  there  are  four  tens  besides.  Also  we  have 
five  Nordenfeldts,  two  five-barrelled,  the  others  three.  Those, 
with  two  inch  and  a  half  Maxims,  are  all  the  ironmongery 
we  carry." 

The  guns  were  clean  and  in  excellent  order,  and  the 
decks  bore  evidence  of  recent  stoning,  but  Captain  Gilmour 
told  me  that  had  I  come  a  week  later  things  would  have 
been  still  more  shipshape. 

"She  steams  fifteen  knots  and  carries  a  crew  of  one 
hundred  and  seventy-five.  My  chief  engineer  is  a  white 
man,  and  my  first  lieutenant  a  Barbadian,  who  was  for- 
merly in  the  merchant  service.  Yes,  the  admiral  comes 
aboard  sometimes.  Admiral  Killick.  A  Haytian .'  Yes. 
He    used    to   command  a  barque.     I  brought  this  ship  out 


/ 


THE  HAYTIAN  NAVY.  109 

from  England,  and  my  chief  engineer  came  with  me.  I 
am  under  contract  with  the  Government  here  lor  three 
years  more.  Uo  I  like  it.?  Oh,  yes.  If  you'll  step  this 
way  I'll  show  you  the   accommodation." 

"Do  you  do  much  target  practice.""     I  asked. 

"  Well,  no,  not  with  the  big  guns.  But  we  do  what 
we  can.  We  tie  a  rifle  on  them  and  shoot  with  it  up  to 
1,000  or  1,500  yards.  It  teaches  the  men  to  work  the 
gun,  you  know,  and  is  nearly  as  good  as  the  real  thing, 
besides  being  less  expensive." 

"Have  you  taken  her  any  long  cruises?"  I  said  as  he 
ushered  me  into  the  cabin,  where  a  portrait  of  the  president 
looked  down  upon  the  scene. 

"  We  don't  go  farther  than  Jacmel  and  the  Cape.  Named 
after?  After  a  battle  when  the  I laytians  drove  the  French 
out  of  the  island.  Well,  I  don't  think  there's  any  more 
to  see.  She'd  have  been  more  shipshape  next  week.  I'll 
give  you  a  cast  ashore  in  my  boat  if  you  care  for  it." 

As  we  left  the  ship,  and  the  six  negro  rowers  settled 
down  into  their  slow,  jerky  stroke,  I  said : 

"  Do  you  think  that  if  the  occasion  arose  your  men 
would — er — rise  to  it?" 

Captain  Gilmour  stroked  his  chin. 

"I  do,"  he  said.  "  When  there  was  that  German  trouble 
here  in  December  '97,  they  sent  two  warships,  as  you 
know,    to    try    and  force  an  indemnity  out  of  this  country. 


no  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  AVHITE. 

Well,  we  were  cleared  for  action,  the  men  lying  down 
behind  their  guns,  and  I  have  never  in  all  my  life  seen 
so  grim  a  look  of  determination  on  any  faces  as  I  saw 
then  on  theirs.  Yes,  I  think  they'd  put  up  a  very  good 
fight  indeed." 

"You  get  a  fair  class  of  men  then?" 

"We  do.  The  pay's  good,  though  they  don't  always 
get  it  quite  to  time.  The  Government  has  embarrassments, 
you  know." 

We  were  nearing  the  wharf,  and  each  stroke  of  the  oars 
raised  mud  and  smell. 

"You  don't  losemenfromyellowfever  or  that  sort  of  thing?  " 

"  No,  we  hardly  ever  have  a  case  of  sickness.  These 
fellows  are  mostly  immune,  anyway." 

Captain  Gilmour  gave  an  order  in  Creole. 

"I  don't  speak  it,"  he  explained,  "or  French  either. 
But  I  can  give  my  orders  in  both.  Many  of  my  men  can 
speak  English.  The  authorities  chose  them  with  a  view 
to  that  when  I  first  came  out."  .     _ 

The  boat  paddled  along,  looking  among  the  rotten,  black, 
and  jagged  piles  for  a   landing-place. 

'•  In  that  German  business,"  said  Captain  Gilmour  remi- 
niscently,  as  the  boathook  caught,  "  we  should  have  sunk 
the  '  Charlotte '  for  certain.  She  was  right  under  our  guns. 
Be  careful  of  that  plank.  It's  loose.  No,  you  won't  take 
a  cocktail?     Well,  good-bye." 


CHAPTER    VI. 


ACROSS   HAYTI. 


I  HAD  lingered  so  long  in  the  city  that  the  prospect  of 
leaving  its  fetid  streets  behind  me  to  breathe  the  purer  air 
beyond  their  influence  was  very  welcome.  On  my  way 
to  San  Domingo  I  rode  out  of  the  capital  towards  the 
Plain  of  Cul-de-Sac,  which  in  the  days  of  the  French  occu- 
pation had  contained  many  flourishing  plantations,  the  soil 
being  rich  and  productive  beyond  the  average  even  in 
prolific  Hayti. 

"Yes,  sir,  you  are  right  plumb  in  the  centre  of  the 
most  fertile  district  in  Hayti — in  the  world.  Do  you  know 
how  much  the  revenue  from  this  Plain  of  Cul-de-Sac  totted 
up  to  in  the  time  of  the  P^rench  colony  a  hundred  years 
back.?  It  was  20,000,000  francs,  and  what  would  you  put 
it  at  now.'" 

I  had  overtaken  the  speaker.     I  looked  round.     We  were 


112  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

riding  up  a  steady  but  hardly  perceptible  incline,  and  were 
in  the  heart  of  the  plain.  Ever  since  the  first  streak  of 
dawn  I  had  been  passing  ruined  walls  matted  with  vege- 
tation, a  few  irregular  patches  of  corn,  a  few  clumps  of 
Guinea  grass  about  each  solitary  palm-thatched  hut,  yet 
mangoes,  bananas,  and  tamarinds  bore  witness  to  the  soil's 
unaided  fruitfulness.  As  we  went  on  the  surroundings 
grew  more  lonely.  Save  for  the  town  of  Pompadette  no 
village  broke  the  desolate  ranges  of  forest  on  either  hand. 

Here  among  wild  and  hardy  trees  some  hint  of  the  old- 
time  occupation  of  man  might  be  traced  in  the  existence 
of  gentler-bred  shrubs,  but  the  splendid  country  houses  of 
the  French  period  had  apparently  been  absorbed  by  the 
jungle,  which  had  closed  in  about  them  when  man  ceased 
to  dwell  there.  Mules,  bred  between  the  parrot  and  the 
blackbird,  chattered  in  the  riotous  foliage,  and  droves  of 
lean  pigs  eked  out  a  precarious  existence  on  the  land  that 
the  forest  had  reclaimed  from  the  dominion  of  man. 

"The  present  revenue?     I  have  not  an  idea,"   I  replied. 

My  questioner  laughed.  ''Not  a  red  cent,  sir!  Each 
year  the  forest  comes  forward,  and  no  effort  is  made  to 
keep  the  ground  clear,  much  less  to  cultivate  it.  There 
is  a  proverb  in  this  island  which  you  may  have  heard — 
'In  Hayti  there  are  only  three  classes  who  work;  the 
white  man,  the  black  woman,  and  the  ass.'  What  would 
it  cost  to  lay  a  railroad  along?     Just  nothing.     And  a  rail 


STREET  SCENE  IN  PETIT  GOAVE. 


I 


ACROSS  HAYTI.  115 

would  tap  the  plain  and  the  lakes.  Sir,  if  America  owned 
this  country  there  would  be  a  track  here  before  midsum- 
mer. As  it  is,  the  place  is  dead  and  getting  deader.  It 
tires  me  to  look  at  it." 

The  Plain  of  Cul-de-Sac  is,  roughly,  twenty-seven  miles 
by  twenty- four.  Port-au-Prince  lies  at  one  end  of  it,  and 
there  the  ships  of  all  nations  offer  a  ready  outlet  to  its 
wealth.  And  yet,  for  all  practical  purposes,  its  wealth  is 
not.  A  few  huts,  primitive  enough  to  cost  the  labour  of 
but  half  a  day,  lie  scattered  over  its  surface,  but  the  occu- 
piers are  satisfied  to  subsist  on  the  produce  of  the  land  as 
Nature  gives  it  into  their  hands.  The  very  sugar-boiling 
pans  of  a  hundred  years  ago  lie  rusting  where  the  dawn 
of  slave-emancipation  found  them,  and  in  these  evidences 
of  a  bygone  prosperity  the  lizard  has  its  dwelling-place. 

Yet  the  people  are  poor,  sordidly  poor.  They  eke  out 
a  living,  as  the  pigs  do,  upon  the  wild  fruits  they  are  too 
lazy  and  too  improvident  to  cultivate.  They  glean  where- 
with to  exist  from  that  which  French  energy  bequeathed 
to  them.  The  wild  descendants  of  the  coffee  shrubs  planted 
by  the  settlers  still  bear  berries,  which  the  negroes  are 
almost  too  idle  to  pick ;  and  if  there  is  a  rainy  season  of 
unusual  duration  they  pick  them  green.  As  for  cleaning 
or  caring  for  the  shrubs,  such  a  thing  is  never  thought  of 
save  in  isolated  cases. 

The  negroes  lounge  away  their  lives  in  the  sun,  reckoning 


ii6  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

their  age  by  the  Presidents  who  come  and  go  in  the  town 
by  the  sea.  Nature  does  all  their  thinking  for  them,  pro- 
vides them  with  necessaries,  the  sole  article  she  fails  to 
supply  them  with  being  clothes,  and  they  are  rapidly  coming 
to  think  clothes  a  superfluity.  All  that  savours  of  civilisa- 
tion is  a  legacy  of  the  white  nations  who  sent  their  bat- 
talions to  win  a  colony  which  eventually  slipped  through 
the  fingers  of  them  all. 

England  gave  Hayti  the  road  I  was  traversing.  It  has 
degenerated  into  a  bridlepath,  but  the  great  frame  of  it 
can  still  be  discerned,  clear  and  straight,  and  eloquent  of 
the  strong  arm  which  cut  it  out  from  the  virgin  forest. 
But  a  hundred  years  of  utter  neglect  has  ruined  it.  It  is 
perhaps  sixty  feet  wide,  in  many  places  wider,  but  it  is 
so  maimed  and  damaged  that  only  a  slender  line  beaten 
down  by  the  passing  feet  of  asses  is  passable. 

The  interior  of  the  huts  by  the  wayside  showed  stark 
and  bare ;  a  cobbled  floor  was  a  sign  of  enterprise,  but 
for  the  most  part  the  earth,  hardened  by  the  feet  of  the 
inmates,  did  duty  for  the  house-floor.  Stars  looked  in 
through  many  a  palm  thatch.  For  the  rest,  a  mat  to 
sleep  upon,  gourds  to  hold  water,  a  cooking  pot,  a  couple 
of  game-cocks  tethered  in  a  corner,  with  a  broken  chair 
or  two,  formed  all  their  belongings,  while  flat-sided  pigs 
fought  with  hens  and  guinea-fowls  for  any  chance  refuse 
of  food. 


ACROSS  HAYTI.  117 

Once  a  week  most  of  the  adults  and  all  the  children, 
make  for  the  nearest  market  to  barter  Guinea-grass  for 
tafia,  what  they  have  for  what  they  have  not. 

Passing  through  this  dreamlike  land  you  often  heard 
the  noise  of  drums,  or  you  came  in  sight  of  a  single 
individual  dancing  alone  in  a  clearing.  It  was  a  happy 
existence,  no  doubt,  where  the  future  was  always  left  to 
adju.st  itself. 

At  length  the  mountain-bordered  plain  gave  way  to  swamp, 
high  green  tufts  of  Guinea-grass  standing  in  pools  of  black 
water.  I  crossed  a  river  some  half  an  hour  before  I  came 
in  sight  of  the  village  of  Thomazeau.  It  was  merely  an 
African  collection  of  huts  lumped  in  clusters,  each  cluster 
within  its  own  stockade,  with  scant  vestige  of  plant  or  tree 
about  them.  The  red-shot  sunset  had  given  way  to  a  pale 
green  overhead  and  purple  tropic  dusk  below.  I  was  very 
hungry  as  I  rode  through  the  open  part  of  the  village, 
which  was  merely  a  space  of  bare  earth. 

On  inquiry  it  turned  out  that  the  man  in  whose  hut  I 
had  intended  to  pass  the  night  had  left  early  that  morning 
for  a  neighbouring  hamlet,  and  was  not  expected  to  return 
till  the  next  day.  This  was  sad,  but  food  seemed  the  first 
and  most  urgent  necessity ;  the  problem  of  finding  a  place 
to  sleep  in  could  be  faced  later  on. 

Ambling  slowly  on,  I  asked  a  likely-looking  woman  where, 
if   anywhere,    I  might  hope  to  get  something  to  eat.     She 


ii8  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHLrE. 

said  she  did  not  know,  but,  as  an  after-thought,  suggested 
that  there  was  a  cock-fight  going  on  at  the  other  end  of 
the  village,  and  that  le  blanc  might  as  well  try  there. 

The  cock-fight  was  taking  place  inside  one  of  the  usual 
enclosures,  under  the  shelter  of  a  wall-less  roof,  which  rose 
above  the  scene  on  its  corner  posts  like  a  four-stemmed 
brown  toadstool.  It  was  a  manifestly  critical  moment  in 
the  cockpit,  for  three  tiers  of  gesticulating  negroes  were 
bending  over  it  with  craning  necks,  raving  in  their 
excitement.  My  arrival  was  almost  unnoticed,  so  I  reined 
up  to  wait  until  public  interest  had  simmered  down. 

In  two  or  three  minutes  a  long-drawn  exclamation  arose 
from  the  crowd,  a  white  bird,  splashed  with  ominous  red, 
was  gathered  up  by  an  angry-looking  negro,  and  you 
could  hear  the  victor  crowing  joyfully  in  the  ring.  Upon 
this  the  women  with  the  baskets  of  bottles  containing  red 
and  yellow  drinks  left  the  outskirts  of  the  crowd  to  squat 
beneath  the  palisade. 

To  one  of  these  I  addressed  myself.  Could  I  get  a 
fowl?  No.  A  turkey.'  No;  nothing  save  pork.  Rut  I  had 
too  intimate  a  knowledge  of  the  habits  of  Haytian  pork  in 
the  pig  stage  to  find  the  offer  alluring,  even  though  I  had 
been  in  the  saddle  since  daylight.  In  the  long  run  I 
succeeded  in  securing  "biscuits"  of  sour  bread  and  a  few 
brown,  seed-covered,  gluey  cakes,  with  which  I  went  off 
to    seek  for  a  lodging.     As  I  passed  up  the  street  for  the 


m 


i 


ACROSS  HAYTI.  121 

second  time,  a  Haytian  with  a  grey  beard  and  a  well-cut 
mouth  came  towards  me. 

**  Do  you  sleep  to-night  at  Thomazeau?"  he  asked  civilly, 
and  on  my  saying  yes,  he  placed  his  house  at  my  disposal. 

This  courteous  old  gentleman  turned  out  to  be  the 
magistrate  of  the  village.  The  ancient  virtue  of  hospitality 
still  flourishes  in  the  rural  districts  ;  it  is  a  very  marked 
characteristic  in  Hayti,  and  is  absolutely  disinterested,  for 
the  offer  of  payment  mortally  offends.  My  host  took  charge 
of  my  horse,  sent  off  a  small  boy  to  cut  a  bundle  of  grass, 
to  which  I  added  corn,  and  then  ushered  me  into  his  hut. 
He  introduced  me  to  his  wife,  an  old  lady  in  blue  print, 
who  brought  me  a  cane-backed  chair  and  busied  herself 
in   laying  out  my  purchases  on  a  table  cloth. 

When  I  had  finished  my  meal,  my  host  led  me  across 
the  stockade  to  a  hut  where  a  mattress  was  spread  on  the 
floor,  and  there,  with  the  help  of  my  flask  and  a  cigar,  we 
passed  the  hour  that  is  ended  all  over  the  island  by  the 
bugle  call.  We  had  discussed  the  possibilities  of  tobacco- 
culture,  for  he  had  brought  me  some  native  tobacco,  and 
talked  of  the  birds  that  haunt  the  lakes  and  one  or  two 
other  subjects  when  the  bugle  sounded. 

Just  across  the  road  was  the  local  guard-house.  In  front 
of  it  the  soldiers  jjaraded,  seven  of  them,  under  the  General 
de  la  Place,  or  Governor,  and  finally  disappeared  into  their 
hut.     My    host    bade    me    good-night.     I    blew    out   the  oil 


122  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHLrE. 

lamp,  but  then  the  mosquitoes,  and  with  them  hordes  of 
sand-flies,  came  out  to  hold  revel  in  the  gloom.  The  last 
thing  I  remembered  was  a  firefly  with  its  pale  lamp  of 
intermittent  green  lighting  up  the  dark  roof. 

In  the  morning,  between  night  and  dawn,  I  parted  from 
my  friend  the  magistrate  and  rode  to  the  limit  of  the  plain 
where  the  mountains  began  to  swell  upwards  and  a  break- 
neck track  led  away  over  the  round  backs  of  the  lower 
hills.  They  were  green  and  heavily  forested,  and  amongst 
them  bird-life  became  noticeably  more  abundant. 

Dawn  grew  to  day,  and  day  to  afternoon ;  the  road 
commended  itself  to  attention  as  one  of  the  worst  even 
in  Hayti.  Almost  perpendicular  in  places,  peppered  with 
loose  sliding  falls  of  stone,  overhung  by  branches  and 
intertwining  creepers  — if  the  ingenuity  of  man  ever  constructed 
a  highway  here  it  had  vanished  out  of  all  recognition.  On 
and  up,  with  a  peep  at  some  towering  summit  or  flowing 
outline  of  a  blue,  far-off"  ridge,  and  hour  by  hour  the  forest 
closed  in  behind,  shutting  one  ofT  from  the  life  of  the 
ordinary   world. 

Soon  I  learned  to  expect  one  prominent  feature  wherever 
a  clearing  in  the  trees  showed  the  presence  of  man. 
Whatever  owed  its  origin  to  human  handiwork  was  falling 
into  decay  and  ruin,  while  Nature,  fresh  and  vigorous,  was 
always  advancing  her  outposts  to  the  verge  of  each  little 
circle  and  plot  where  the  frail  ragged  dwellings  held  their 


ACROSS  HAYTI.  123 

own,  like  forlorn  hopes  that  might  at  any  time  be  ruthlessly 
smothered  in  the  living  tide  of  rank  foliage. 

So  I  went  on,  lingering  by  the  way,  eating  the  food  I 
obtained  from  the  negroes  and  sleeping  beside  their  huts. 
One  day  was  very  like  another.  The  people  in  the  lonely 
groups  of  hovels  only  seemed  to  grow  more  poor,  more 
ignorant,  more  superstitious,  and  in  some  ways  more  degraded 
as  I  penetrated  further  into  the  interior  of  the  country. 
Few  had  enterprise  enough  to  go  to  any  place  more  distant 
than  the  nearest  market,  everyone  lived  from  hand  to 
mouth  and  seemed  content  to  have  it  so. 

Native  life  showed  few  attractions,  no  new  features 
presented  themselves,  even  individuality  appeared  to  die 
out  in  that  stagnation  of  existence. 

One  evening  I  was  seated  on  a  mat  of  water-reeds  in 
the  shadow  of  an  old  hut,  the  single  room  of  which  gave 
shelter  night  by  night  to  eleven  natives. 

Compared   to  this,  Thomazeau  was  civilisation  incarnate. 

The  scene  before  me  consisted  of  a  few  isolated  huts 
huddled  together  inside  a  dilapidated  stockade.  Old  Papa, 
the  patriarch  of  this  disparate  knot  of  human  beings,  sat 
in  shadow,  dozing  on  a  broken-down  bench.  In  the  fore- 
ground, under  the  usual  four-legged  toadstool  roof,  a  fire 
smouldered,  about  which  two  or  three  girls  were  squatting, 
and  the  smoke  curled  lazily  out  into  the  sunlight.  A  youth, 
clothed  only  in  a  torn  coat,  which  he  used  as  a  loin-cloth. 


124  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHFrE. 

was  gnawing  at  a  banana  in  the  middle  distance.  Beside 
these,  nothing  but  tamarinds,  sand-flies,  sun,  and  dust. 

Papa  was  a  senile  figure,  with  a  wrinkled  mild  old  face. 
For  thirty  years  he  had  watched  the  slow  decay  of  things 
and  of  himself.  I  warmed  him  into  life  with  a  little  rum, 
and  he  chattered  innocuously  of  times  forgotten,  when 
Boyer  was  President  and  he,  the  old  fossil,  was  young. 

He  had  seen  strong  men  shot  down  and  buried,  whose 
very  graves  have  been  lost  for  half  a  century,  for  Boyer 
was  in  power  in  the  twenties.  He  was,  undoubtedly,  "old, 
old,"  as  he  called  himself,  and  his  wife  was  old,  old,  also, 
and  so  was  everything  that  was  his.  His  children  and  grand- 
children were  dead.  The  fourth  generation  lived  around 
him,  and  his  grandson's  grandson  brought  fire  to  light  his  pipe. 

All  around  the  stockade  the  trees  bore  witness  to  the 
mischievous  spirit  of  the  dwellers  there.  The  machette,  a 
knife  like  a  cutlass,  had  been  used  for  wanton  destruction 
often,  sometimes  to  extract  gum;  in  all  cases  the  trees  so 
wounded  were  dying.  These  people  were  the  poorest  I 
had  come  across  ;  they  might  have  almost  belonged  to  a 
lower  race. 

They  were  dirty  and  squalid  beyond  imagination,  some 
went  naked.  A  bow-legged  boy,  long-armed  as  a  gorilla, 
evidently  half-witted,  prowled  about  making  beast  noises, 
or  shambled  with  an  attempt  at  the  swaying  shufifle  common 
to  dancine  here. 


ACROSS  HAYTl.  125 

One  or  two  of  the  people  had  come  to  show  me  sores, 
asking  me  to  cure  them.  I  doled  out  carbolised  vaseline 
and  similar  remedies,  with  instructions,  but  probably  they 
were  taken  internally. 

At  nightfall  the  negroes  retired  into  the  hut,  and  I  could 
not  accept  Papa's  offer  to  me  of  the  hospitality  of  its  over- 
burdened stowage  space.  A  mat  and  a  waterproof  blanket 
under  the  stars  served  me  better.  I  rolled  myself  up,  for 
the  dew  was  heavy,  but  night  brought  no  silence  or 
cessation  of  speech.  One  or  other  of  the  crowd  in  the  hut 
would  waken  at  intervals;  he  at  once  waked  someone  else, 
and  talked.  All  through  the  dark  hours  the  chattering 
never  ceased.  Dawn  was  still  sketched  out  in  black  and 
white  when   they  arose  and  trooped  out. 

The  old  man  at  once  sought  his  bench,  and  began  his 
day-long  vigil.  A  small,  fat,  black  girl  raked  among  the 
flaky  ashes  of  the  wood-fire,  and  soon  collected  a  little  heap 
of  glowing  red  for  the  coffee.  The  gorilla  boy  brought 
me  a  cup  of  water  for  my  ablutions,  but  I  preferred  the 
lake  down  in  a  valley  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away. 
There  you  could  bathe  in  shallow  water,  underneath  which 
was  a  quicksand  which  took  you  to  the  knees. 

By  the  time  I  returned,  the  day  had  grown  into  lemon 
colour,  and  a  smell  of  burning  coffee  berries  arose  with 
the  gouts  of  rich  blue- black  smoke  from  the  fire.  In  the 
midst  of  the  blossoming,   fruitful  land,   this  unsightly  home 


126  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

was  a  fresh  ofifence.  About  the  huts  small  Haytians  fronted 
the  morning  sun,  naked  and  unashamed.  The  luxuries  of 
life  had  no  place  here;  necessity  is  the  only  queen  in  wild 
Hayti.  Truly  it  may  be  said  of  man  here  that  naked  he 
comes  into  the  world,  and  naked,  using  the  term  in  its 
widest  sense,  he  goes  out  of  it  again. 

Of  the  peasant's  attitude  towards  the  stranger  in  the 
more  remote  districts,  I  have  nothing  to  say  but  good. 
His  virtue  of  hospitality  is  beautiful.  His  politeness  is 
beyond  reproach.  He  is  Nature's  gentleman  in  many  ways, 
and  though  he  is  poor  in  worldly  goods,  he  is  rich  in  some 
of  the  higher  qualities. 

Riding  through  the  rural  districts  you  find  it  hard  to 
obtain  anything  to  eat,  but  easy  enough  to  get  a  place  in 
which  to  sleep.  The  people  cannot  give  you  what  they 
have  not,  but  they  do  give  what  they  have,  and  that  with 
both  hands. 

Even  nearer  to  the  towns  I  have  known  a  peasant  rise 
from  his  own  bed,  place  sheets  upon  it,  and  lead  his  guest 
to  it.  If  you  offered  him  money-payment  in  the  morning 
he  refused  it  aggrieved,  but  a  knife  or  some  such  trifle, 
presented  as  from  one  equal  to  another,  was  received  with 
pleasure. 

The  average  diet,  if  you  except  the  fruits  which  grow 
of  themselves,  is  limited  to  a  little  rice,  sticky  seed 
cakes    with    brown    sugar,    that    make    you    sleep,    and,    if 


ACROSS  HAYTI.  127 

luck  is  good,  sour  bread.  In  mango  season,  they  may 
say,  as  in  Jamaica,  "Turn  up  the  pot;"  while  the  fruit 
lasts  there  is  no  need  for  cooking. 

Sometimes  a  pig  is  killed,  one  of  the  sharp-snouted,  slab- 
sided  scavengers  that  are  everywhere  in  evidence.  A 
European  digestion  would  infallibly  fail  before  this  special 
brand  of  pork,  but  the  robuster  negro  appears  to  put  it 
away  without  inconvenience. 

Their  relaxations  are  twain — dancing  and  cock-fighting. 
Their  ideas  of  wealth  take  the  form  of  the  possession  of 
these  plumed  warriors.  But  it  is  good  to  note  that  they 
have  never  heard  of  such  barbarous  things  as  steel  spurs. 
The  cocks  are  permitted  to  fight  with  such  weapons  as 
Nature  has  given  them. 

But  the  mountain  people  among  whom  Papa  and  his  like 
reigned  were  not  at  all  representative  of  the  average  native. 
They  were  a  wilder  race,  with  the  shyness  of  the  woods 
upon  them,  and  what  I  have  written  above  as  to  other 
districts  must  not  be  taken  as  applying  to  them.  Here 
were  no  such  civilised  adjuncts  as  sheets ;  life  was  raw, 
crude,  rudimentary.  Taken  all  in  all,  it  was  the  sordid, 
purblind  life  of  savages. 

To-day  in  that  lonely  stockade  was  but  a  replica  of  yester- 
day, the  one  barren  as  the  other.  The  old  mumbling  man 
sitting  on  the  old  bench,  the  large-headed,  solemn  child 
carrying    him    an    ember    for  his  pipe.      Birth  and  death  in 


128  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

scarcely-heeded  sequence  visited  the  hut,  but  the  old  man 
drowsed  on.  Fie  reigned  there  amongst  the  dust,  the  sand- 
flies, the  hot  wind,  the  parched  tamarinds  in  the  stale  and 
rotting  stockade,  and  his  kingdom  was  only  existence  and 
the  passage  of  hours.  And  there  he  will  go  on  reigning 
until  he  goes  out  of  a  world  that  has  already  passed 
beyond  him. 


CHAPTER    VII. 


INTO    SAN    DOMINGO. 


Every  country  has  its  own  modes  of  travelling,  more 
or  less  pleasant.  In  this  tropical  land  you  either  ride 
through  the  heat  of  the  day  or  you  continue  your  journey 
far  into  tiie  night,  and  if  the  night  should  happen  to  be 
starless  your  direction  and  your  life  are  both  at  the  mercy 
of  your  horse. 

One  night  comes  back  to  me  above  all  others.  I  was 
in  the  far  interior.  The  road  ?  There  was  no  road.  A 
track  led  round  boulders,  and  branches  hung  low  over  it. 
You  had  to  be  careful  of  your  eyes,  for  thorn  bushes 
thrust  out  inch-long  prongs  to  maul  you.  I  was  haunted 
by  the  fear  of  them.  Think  what  blindness  would  be  up 
there  in  those  remote  solitudes  1 

We  were  passing  over  the  mountains  beside  Lake  Assauei, 
and  there  was  nothing  to  guide  one  through  the  forest,  for 

9 


I30  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

in  the  sky  was  only  the  Hght  of  the  evening  star  and  a 
white  moon  in  her  first  quarter.  We  had  ridden  many 
miles,  and  many  more  lay  in  front  of  us  before  any  chance 
of  rest  or  food.  The  so-called  bottomless  lake  was  on  the 
left  hand,  the  trail  wound  in  and  out  about  loafshaped 
hills  crowded  with  forest  and  tangled  with  those  inwoven 
creeping  plants  which  one  always  associates  with  the  idea 
of  a  South  American  jungle.  The  scent  of  the  water  was 
in  the  air.  Stones  shifting  under  the  horse-hoofs  supplied 
the  dominant  sound  ;  you  heard  them  fall  over  the  precipice, 
and  long  afterwards  the  echo  of  their  plunge  in  the  unseen 
lake  came  up  feebly. 

We  were  riding  along  a  cHff,  unable  to  see  more  than  four 
yards  ahead ;  my  white  horse  was  moving  forward  with 
a  sort  of  irritable  caution,  feeling  the  trail.  The  guide,  who 
had  no  taste  for  night-pioneering,  followed  on  a  shaggy  mule. 

Occasionally,  by  the  light  of  your  cigar,  you  could  see 
a  dark  bush  or  a  thick  tree-limb  close  above  your  head. 
You  dodged  to  evade  it,  and  the  thorns  ripped  away  jagged 
strips  of  hat  or  coat.  This  sort  of  thing  seemed  to  go  on 
for  hours.  The  forests,  almost  untraversed  by  man,  cer- 
tainly by  white  men,  were  silent  save  for  the  occasional 
movement  of  some  bird,  a  wind  in  the  leaves,  or  the  pulsat- 
ing fall  of  a  stone  as  it  struck  the  cliff-side  on  its  long 
leap  into  the  lake.  You  felt  gigantically  alone — in  the  heart 
of  the  Black  Republic  and  the  black  night. 


INTO  SAN  DOMINGO.  131 

Presently  it  was  certain  we  had  lost  our  way ;  the  forest 
raised  up  an  impenetrable  wall  in  front  of  us.  We  turned, 
and  by  the  help  of  a  series  of  lit  matches  tried  to  come 
upon  the  path  again.  This  happened  four  times.  Two 
hours  later  (by  the  watch — by  one's  feelings  four  at  least) 
we  began  to  descend  towards  the  lake,  where  it  was  more 
likely  we  might  come  upon  some  stray  hut.  Our  respective 
mounts  leaped  and  scrambled  and  slid  down  tunnel-like 
declivities,  over-arched  with  trees  and  paved  by  a  water-cut 
lane,  which  lent  itself  to  unexpected  steep  drops  at  frequent 
intervals.  Riding  of  this  sort  would  of  course,  be  quite 
impossible  in  a  country  ranged  over  by  big  game,  but  here 
there  is  nothing  more  formidable  to  be  met  with  than  an 
escaped  pig  or  a  dog  run  wild.  At  length  we  came  upon 
a  solitary  hut,  where  my  guide  managed  to  raise  the  materials 
for  a  torch. 

And  now  it  was  that  we  reached  the  difficult  part  of 
the  journey.  The  torch  with  its  comet  tail  of  sparks  moved 
in  the  blackness  like  a  red  tracery  on  a  ground  of  black 
velvet.  The  shadows  made  rushes  at  you  as  you  swayed 
your  light  this  way  and  that  above  your  head.  The  horse 
kept  his  footing  after  the  extraordinary  manner  of  Haytian 
horses,  despite  the  fact  that  the  ground  at  his  feet  was  a 
moving  panorama  of  light  and  dark. 

On,  and  on.  and  on,  and  the  guide  seems  less  hopeful  than 
ever  of  the  end  of  our  ride.     The  truth  is  he  has  long  ago 


1,32  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

lost  himself.  Finally,  the  torch  burns  itself  out,  and  again 
we  plod  on  at  haphazard  through  a  gully.  The  night  grows 
in  round  us  again.  As  we  top  the  next  incline  a  scream 
pierces  upwards  to  us.  We  push  on.  Now  you  can  hear 
the  short,  sullen  bark  of  the  Vaudoux  drum,  and,  advancing 
from  behind  a  curtain  of  black  trees,  in  which  are  netted 
stars  and  fire-flies,  we  come  in  sight  of  a  great  red  glow 
set  in  the  heart  of  the  forest. 

A  group  of  negroes  are  dancing  round  the  fires;  it  is 
the  wind-up  of  a  three-days-long  Vaudoux  orgie.  Two 
days  ago  a  black  goat  was  sacrificed  to  the  sacred  snake, 
and  the  frenzy  of  the  worshippers  is  still  unexhausted. 
There  they  are,  screaming,  writhing,  and  swaying,  apparently 
blind  to  all  outward  things.  You  rein  up  your  horse  to 
watch.  They  take  no  heed  of  you,  for  they  have  no  eyes 
in  this  remote  and  lonely  spot  save  for  their  excesses. 
Here  they  are  not  afraid  of  interference  :  not  that  interference 
is  to  be  expected  anywhere  in  the  island,  but  in  these  wild 
districts,  cut  off  from  civilisation  and  the  towns  by  the  slabby 
and  unmanageable  mud  of  the  rainy  season  and  by  the 
pathless  hills,  they  omit  all  precaution. 

Easily  you  can  pick  out  the  Mamaloi.  There  she  is  in 
dirty  white,  bound  round  the  waist  with  a  red  sash.  Op- 
posite to  her  dances  a  large,  fierce-eyed,  splay-footed  negro. 
The  fires,  the  posturing  black  forms,  the  uncouth  howls — 
it  is  like  a  scene  from  Hell.     You  may  be  the  bravest  man 


A    HAYTIAN   HICHWAV. 


INTO  SAN  DOMINGO.  135 

in  the  world,  but  when  you  recollect  that  the  probabilities 
are  hugely  in  favour  of  these  same  people  having  sacrificed 
a  child  to  their  god  at  some  date  not  too  remote,  your 
hand  goes  creeping  to  your  revolver. 

When  you  grow  tired  of  watching,  you  turn  and  make  a 
detour,  skirting  the  far  edge  of  the  clearing,  and,  finding 
the  track  again,  you  pass  through  a  deserted  village,  the 
inhabitants  of  which  are  all  at  the  Vaudoux  dance.  The 
fires,  which  the  negro  always  keeps  alight,  still  shine,  mere 
glow-worms  on  the  bare  brown  earth. 

While  upon  the  subject  of  child-sacrifice,  let  me  state 
that  although  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  at  certain  seasons 
of  the  year,  and  more  particularly  at  Easter  and  Christmas, 
such  sacrifices  do  most  certainly  take  place,  still,  regardless 
of  what  has  been  written  upon  the  subject,  I  strenuously 
believe  that  no  European,  with  the  single  exception  of  one 
Catholic  priest,  has  ever  actually  been  present  on  an 
occasion  of  the  kind.  The  dead  child  sacrificially  dis- 
membered has  frequently  been  seen  afterwards,  but  the 
actual  ceremony  excludes  most  rigorously  all  save  the 
initiated. 

The  noise  of  the  dance  dies  away  behind.  We  are  now 
in  lower  and  marshier  land.  The  young  moon  has  set, 
the  trees  seem  taller  and  tower  up  above  us.  Monkej's 
move  restlessly  in  their  branches,  disturbed  by  our  passing. 
The    going    on    the    mountains    was   bad,  but  this  gorge  is 


136  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

worse.  The  trees  advance  on  you  like  a  regiment  in  open 
order;  you  are  swallowed  up  amongst  them.  A  night's 
bivouac  in  the  forest  is  all  that  we  can  look  forward  to. 
We  are  hopelessly  lost  and  only  day  can  deliver  us.  I 
mention  this  to  the  guide.  He  acquiesces.  This  is  in  fact 
the  point  towards  which  his  diplomacy  has  all  along  been 
directed.  Regardless  of  the  chorus  of  frogs  and  the  more 
than  marshy  ground,  he  proposes  to  bivouac  on  the  spot, 
but  the  unhealthy  chill  speaks  eloquently  of  malaria,  and 
we  move  on. 

More  quagmires,  more  boulders,  more  branch-dodging, 
more  slipping  of  the  tired  beasts  we  ride.  Will  it  never 
end  ?  At  last  we  come  to  a  possible  halting-place,  a  deserted 
hut,  with  no  walls,  and  a  broken  roof,  its  supporting  posts 
scarred  with  flame.  In  the  centre  of  the  floor  a  heap  of 
white  and  flaky  ashes,  the  remains  of  a  dead  fire.  You 
put  your  hand  to  it.  A  faint  heat.  Someone  camped 
here  last  night.  Probably  a  game-cock  farmer  from  one  of 
the  Haytian  villages,  who  was  working  his  way  eastwards 
to    the    good    markets    of  San  Domingo  City  or  Barahona. 

The  guide  rekindles  the  fire  and  fetches  water  from  a 
stream,  and  you  manufacture  a  meal  of  rice  and  soup  in 
a  tin  mug.  After  that  one  pipe.  Then  you  stretch  your 
hammock  between  the  joists  of  the  open  hut,  and  the  next 
thing  you  know  is  that  the  light  of  dawn  is  filtering  down 
into  your  eyes  through  the  trees.     You  arise  and  take  your 


fS,..^^-/ 


INTO  SAN  DOMINGO.  139 

bearings  to  find  you  have  wandered  four  miles  only  out 
of  your  intended  path. 

Farther  and  farther  we  plunged  into  the  doublings  of  the 
sierra,  valleys  closed  up  behind  us,  and  hills  folded  in 
one  upon  another,  and  still  we  pushed  on  through  the 
almost  virginal  forest.  The  trees  above  were  dark  against 
a  sky  where  the  morning  stars  shone  together.  Presently, 
as  the  woodland  thinned  away  to  more  open  countr}',  a  hot 
wind,  bearing  on  it  the  exhalations  of  the  marshes  which 
fringe  Lake  Fundo,  blew  idly  by. 

Then  all  at  once  in  the  rising  day  you  come  in  sight  of 
the  lake  vi^hich  is  half  in  Haytian,  half  in  Dominican  terri- 
tory. It  is  deep  and  still  and  blue,  cradled  in  towering 
hills  about  which  cling  turquoise  clouds,  and  the  whole 
wide  scene  shines  out  upon  you  with  a  strange  insistent 
beauty,  the  essential  charm  of  which  it  is  hard  to  analyse. 
A  few  plumes  of  soft  grey  smoke  rise  straight  as  palm 
stems  from  the  other  shore,  and  high  up,  lark-high  in 
heaven,  a  breeze  catches  them  and  blows  them  abroad  into 
great  wisps  and   fronds  that  melt  slowly  out  of  sight. 

Up  on  the  mountain  side  the  air  is  like  champagne,  cool 
and  bracing.  All  around,  from  peaked  summit  to  the 
water's  edge,  the  forests  spread  in  an  unbroken  sea  of 
green — an  uncalculated  wealth  of  timber.  A  few  trees  are 
occasionally  felled  on  the  other  side  of  the  mountains,  and 
in  due  time   reach  I'ort-au-Prince  for  export,  but  very  little 


T40  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

is  done :  absence  of  roads  or  of  any  means  of  communi- 
cations dams  up  the  riches  of  the  country  into  the  interior. 
The  Consular  Report  for  1898  masses  the  export  of  mahogany 
with  six  other  items  under  the  remark :  "  Not  of  sufficient 
importance  to  be  quoted  1 "  Golden  opportunities  lie  ripe 
to  be  plucked,  but  here  is  no  hand  to  pluck  them. 

By  the  shore  herons  stalk  through  the  shallows  and 
show  their  awkward  grey-blue  bunch  of  body  set  between 
the  angles  of  legs  and  beak.  Alligators  lie  abask  in  the 
strong,  sweet  sunshine.  The  whole  picture  with  its  broad, 
vivid  tones  of  blue  and  green  is  magnificently  tropical  and 
rich  and  high-coloured. 

If  the  flag  of  any  other  country  flew  over  the  land,  how 
long  would  this  glorious  lake  and  its  fellow  across  the 
border  retain  their  present  opulent  desolation?  No  boat 
pushes  a  venturesome  forefoot  through  the  brackish  water 
—(for  these  lakes  are  salt,  yet  fed  by  fresh  springs,  so  that 
here  and  there  you  can  stand  in  salt  water  and  drink  fresh) -- 
save  one  which  American  enterprise  has  brought  with  infinite 
trouble  through  the  blocked-up  land  and  set  afloat  on  Fundo. 

In  the  French  times  there  were  country  houses  here,  but 
they  lie  in  ruins,  swarmed  over  by  the  ingrowing  forest. 
I  sought  out  the  almost  lost  vestiges  of  a  colonial  estate. 
The  fierce  fingers  of  the  tropic  seasons  had  torn  and  twisted 
it  into  untimely  decay ;  no  doorways,  no  outline  of  living 
rooms,    nothing    but    a    heap  of  tumbled  walls  not  as  high 


NATIVES. 


INTO  SAN  DOMINGO.  143 

as  your  knee,  with  lizards  sleeping  on  the  sun-warmed 
stones  and  forest  vines  tangled  over  their  downfall. 

It  is  the  same  all  over  Hayti  wherever  you  go;  all  that 
savours  of  industry,  energy,  civilisation,  in  short,  has  been 
and  is  not.  All  that  the  white  races  left  behind  as  mile- 
stones on  the  path  leading  up  out  of  sheer  savage  waste 
and  idleness  is  obliterated.  As  far  as  the  interior  is 
concerned,  the  situation  in  the  present  day  is  retrogression 
with  regard  to  the  human  element,  and  retrocession  to  the 
forest-powers  of  once  cultivated  lands. 

There  you  are  among  a  people  who  prefer  a  thatched 
hut  to  a  palace.  The  inhabitants  scattered  about  that  part 
of  the  country  are  few,  but  none  of  them  have  made  their 
presence  felt.  A  shanty  of,  so  to  speak,  sticks  and  leaves 
buried  in  the  trees  is  all  you  find.  At  the  distance  of 
fifty  yards  you  are  unaware  of  the  presence.  The  land  is 
empty  but  for  a  few  birds  and  reptiles. 

In  the  remoter  places  you  may  see  a  dog  run  wild,  and 
breeding  wild,  slink  with  its  litter  from  foliage  to  foliage ; 
or  perhaps,  when  camping,  a  herd  of  pigs,  also  run  wild 
and  lacking  the  forked  stick  which  is  the  domestic  emblem, 
the  sign  of  man's  ownership,  comes  out  upon  you  unaware 
and  fiies  grunting  to  thicker  cover.  On  Gonave  Island 
wild  pigs  proper,  descendants  probably  of  those  droves 
hunted  by  the  buccaneers  in  bygone  days,  still  haunt  the 
recesses  of  the  woods. 


144  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

Late  that  night,  as  we  came  through  a  wilder  defile  than 
usual  under  the  dark  green  forest  shadows,  a  fire,  small  as 
a  firefly,  twinkled  on  a  ledge  above  the  track. 

''Qui  vive?" 

A  little  ramshackle  guardhouse,  showing  against  a  wall 
of  trees,  was  perched  on  a  clearing  just  big  enough  to 
hold  it.  It  was  of  wood,  rust-coloured  and  dreary-looking. 
Broken  walls  stood  up  awry  from  the  floor  of  the  forest, 
and  on  the  narrow  piazza  in  front  two  ragged  soldiers,  like 
a  pair  of  vultures,  craned  over  the  road.  They  unslung 
their  rope-suspended  rifles  and  demanded  passports.  For 
this  was  the  Frontier  Guard  of  Hayti.  They  came  down 
the  slope  of  broken  weedy  ground  until  an  arm  stretched 
up  from  horseback  could  reach  them,  and  examined  the 
passports,  and  before  they  had  recovered  their  places  at 
the  fireside  and  sunk  back  upon  their  haunches,  we  were 
over  the  border  and  in  the  Republic  of  San  Domingo. 

The  Laguna  de  Fundo  used  to  be  entirely  on  Haytian 
territory,  but  now  the  Dominican  landmark  has  moved  slowly 
and  ominously  half-way  up  its  blue  waters.  Even  on  the 
lake  level  the  air  was  balmy,  the  temperature  ranging  from 
90  degrees  on  the  shore  to  anything  you  prefer  on  the 
rise  of  the  mountain  sides.  Neither  Cuba  nor  Jamaica  can 
give  you  a  climate  so  perfect  as  Hayti. 

Evening  came  with  a  wind,  and  the  lake  was  transformed. 
Seen  from  the  lower  ground  it  now  appeared  like  a  menacing 


INTO  SAN  DOMINGO.  145 

eye,  set  beneath  the  rough  and  scowHng  brow  of  the 
mountain.     No  wonder  legends  have  grown  round  about  it. 

The  Laguna  de  Fundo  and  its  companion,  which  hes 
altogether  within  the  limits  of  San  Domingo,  are  both 
about  200  feet  above  the  sea-level,  and  in  times  of  heavy 
rains  or  floods  are  connected  by  water  lying  in  the  lowlands 
between.  Lake  Enquirillo,  the  larger  lake,  is  supposed 
once  to  have  been  connected  with  the  sea  by  a  subter- 
ranean river  ;  the  waters  are  salt,  and  it  is  said  sharks  and 
porpoises  still  exist  in  them ;  but  to  this  last  I  cannot  bear 
any  personal  testimony. 

I  remained  in  the  Dominican  State  but  a  short  time,  and 
the  little  I  saw  of  the  people  did  not  strike  me  too  favour- 
ably. They  are  not  nearly  so  likeable  as  the  Haytian  peasan- 
try, and  hospitality  does  not  flourish  in  the  same  degree  as 
on  the  western  side  of  the  border.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Government  of  San  Domingo  is  lessjealous  of  foreign  influence. 

The  Dominicans  speak  Spanish,  and  have  preserved  the 
purity  of  their  language  to  a  far  greater  degree  than  can 
be  said  of  the  Haytians,  whose  French  has  degenerated 
into  a  Creole  patois  so  corrupt  that  it  can  with  difficulty 
be  understood  by  outsiders.  A  reason  for  this  may  be 
adduced  from  the  fact  that  in  San  Domingo  we  find  a  colour- 
ed as  opposed  to  an  entirely  black  population. 

For  San  Domingo  is  the  Mulatto  Republic,  and  the  mixture 
of  races  has  probably  done  much  towards  keeping  the  general 


146  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

status  of  its  people  on  a  higher  level ;  yet  the  lack  of  energy 
is  very  apparent  there  also.  There  is  no  doubt  that  both  States 
contain  a  vast  amount  of  mineral  wealth,  of  wealth  of  all 
kinds,  but  the  output  is  blockaded  hopelessly  by  their 
respective   Governments    and   the    inertness   of  the  people. 

The  trail  into  San  Domingo  is  little  travelled.  A  few 
natives  work  across  to  sell  fighting-cocks,  a  few  more  have 
an  interest  in  cutting  wood  beside  the  lakes,  a  few  who 
have  committed  misdeeds  break  cover  there  for  safety. 
For  the  rest  there  is  no  traffic ;  it  is  left  to  the  parrots 
that  fly  above  and  the  wild  pigs  which  range  in  the  woods. 
And  this,  you  must  understand,  is  the  chief  highway  be- 
tween Hayti  and  San  Domingo. 

In  the  time  of  the  late  Dominican  President  Hereaux, 
who  was  assassinated  some  months  ago,  there  used  to  be 
a  few  soldiers  posted  on  the  frontier,  but  either  Jimenez 
recalled  them  or  they  have  recalled  themselves.  If  a 
history  of  Hereaux  comes  to  be  written,  I  think  the  lie 
will  be  given  to  many  superficial  observers  who  have 
committed  their  ideas  upon  him  and  his  methods  of  ruling 
to  paper  and  added  praise.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that 
certain  of  them  had  any  personal  knowledge  of  the  man 
or  of  his  country.  Here  was  a  ruler  masterful  certainly, 
but  whose  mastery  was  obtained  by  the  foulest  of  means. 
He  was  a  President  of  the  Central  American  type,  unscrupu- 
lous, pliable,  fair-seeming,  and  immutably  vengeful. 


CHAPTER    VII  I. 

HAYTIAN    POLICE,    PRISONS    AND    HOSPITALS. 

He  was  lightly  attired  in  the  remnants  of  a  striped  shirt, 
and  what  the  passage  of  years  had  left  of  a  pair  of  sky- 
blue  cotton  trousers.  On  his  head  he  carried  a  blue  cap 
with  a  red  band,  and  in  his  hand  a  dirty  yellow  club. 
He  was  a  very  black  and  lowering  negro,  with  the  invariable 
scanty  imperial  on  his  chin,  which  accentuated  the  resem- 
blance that  sprang  at  once  into  my  mind — a  humanised 
black  goat. 

I  was  told  that  he  was  a  policeman  of  the  Republic, 
and  experience  afterwards  substantiated  the  fact  that  he 
was  quite  a  fair  sample  of  the  force. 

They  are  Hke  no  other  police  all  the  world  over;  they 
stand  curiously  alone  in  respect  of  many  particulars.  When 
on  duty  they  loaf  about  the  streets,  and  are  very  frequently 
fulfilling   their    duties    in    a    manner    that    you    are   glad  to 


148  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

escape  from  witnessing.  Elsewhere  one  seldom  sees  the 
colour  of  human  blood  ;  in  this  island  the  chances  are  that 
you  will  see  it  flowing  in  broad  daylight  whenever  the 
guardians  of  the  peace  think  fit  to  make  an  arrest,  for 
they  are  prone  to  use  their  cocomacaque  clubs,  and  in  the 
cases  where  the  victim  is  not  picked  out  at  random  as  a 
medium  whereby  they  may  secure  a  meal,  they  are  sure 
to  be  beating  the  wrong  man. 

The  police  are  merely  soldiers  told  off  casually  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  public  safety.  Their  pay  is  ordinarily  in 
arrears,  and  when  remitted  to  someone  in  authority  for  distri- 
bution, reaches  them  in  an  attenuated  form.  In  addition  to 
this,  they  have  to  "keep  themselves,"  but  the  administration 
has  invented  an  ingenious  method  by  which  a  truly  zealous 
officer  can  manage  to  stave  off"  starvation  very  well  indeed. 

In  some  towns,  at  any  rate,  they  receive  a  capitation 
fee  of  fifty  centimes — a  fluctuating  sevenpence-halfpenny 
according  to  the  exchange — for  every  man  they  arrest. 
Fortunately,  living  is  cheap,  so  that  when  hunger  bears  too 
hardly  upon  them  the  remedy  of  a  timely  prisoner  is  easily 
come  by.  There  need  be  no  superfluous  scruples,  such  as 
waiting  until  a  man  commits  an  offence  against  the  law.  Pick 
a  quarrel  with  any  stray  passer-by  or  pounce  down  upon 
him  unawares.  There  will  be  some  howls  and  a  patter  of  flying 
feet  as  the  victim  understands  his  ill-luck,  and  flies  from  it. 

But   the    policeman   is    not   to  be  so  easily  baulked ;  he 


HAYTIAN  POLICE,  PRISONS  AND  HOSPITALS.       151 

bounds  in  pursuit.  Perhaps  the  pursued  doubles,  and 
catches  a  thud  on  the  shoulder  from  the  cocomacaque  club. 
With  a  cry,  he  rushes  in  to  close  with  the  policeman  :  in 
every  arrest  I  witnessed  the  procedure  was  the  same — the 
two  struggled  for  possession  of  the   club. 

Not  for  long,  however.  A  sleeping  policeman  reels  into 
wakefulness  up  the  hot  street,  and  rushes  out  with  flying 
coat-tails  from  the  nearest  arrondissement.  "  Tenez,  tenez!" 
he  shouts,  as  he  makes  to  the  aid  of  his  companion,  and 
smash  goes  his  club  on  the  head  or  face  of  the  offender, 
who  lets  go  his  hold,  and  the  first  accuser  takes  the 
opportunity  to  indulge  in  a  thorough-going  revenge.  The 
victim  is  taken  away  to  the  lock-up  afterwards  in  a  more 
or  less  unspeakable  condition. 

If  he  were  a  white,  one  would  say,  knowing  where  he 
is  going  to,  that  he  must  die  of  his  injuries.  As  he  is 
black,  the  chances  are  that  after  some  days  of  pain  he  will 
recover  from  the  beating.  The  back  is  suited  to  the  burden, 
says  the  proverb;  also  in  Hayti  the  thickness  of  the  skull 
to  the  stick.  The  cocomacaque  club  is  a  cane  jointed  like 
a  bamboo,  but  solid  and  unbreakable.  It  is  heavy  enough 
to  fell  an  ox,  and  it  is  used  indiscriminately  over  the  heads 
and  bodies  of  the  prisoners.  It  is  iron  shod  to  add  piquancy 
to  the  blows.  Even  the  negro  occasionally  succumbs  to 
its  powers,  and  has  been  known  to  die  by  the  roadside 
on  his  way  to  the  jail. 


152  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

The  cocomacaque,  like  the  poHceman,  is  indigenous  to 
the  Black  Republic. 

I  cannot  take  an  example  of  this  singular  method  of 
action  from  the  contemporary  newspapers  of  Hayti,  as  they 
rarely,  if  ever,  print  news  of  this  sort,  either  because  such 
occurrences  are  too  common  to  call  for  comment,  or  they 
are  too  wise  to  mention  what  is  in  the  nature  of  a  grave 
scandal.  But  formerly,  when  a  more  independent  paper 
existed,  cases  like  the  following  were  duly  published.  Sir 
Spencer  St.  John,  British  Minister  in  Hayti,  quotes  from 
"La  Verite"  of  August  23rd,    1887:  — 

"  A  Death  in  Prison. — Our  readers  may  remember  that 
the  individual  who  had  tried  to  pillage  the  house  of  M. 
Marmont  Flaubert  had  been  wounded  by  the  police :  he 
was  taken  to  prison  in  this  state.  His  leg  was  horribly 
fractured.  From  want  of  attention  mortification  soon  set 
in,  and  presently  the  existence  of  this  unfortunate  was  in 
peril.  A  good  woman,  of  whom  a  few  are  still  found 
among  us,  overcoming  her  repugnance,  wished  to  assist 
him  in  his  last  moments.  She  tended  as  well  as  she  could 
the  putrid  limb,  and  talked  of  God  to  the  dying  wretch. 
He  was  touched,  sent  for  a  priest,  and  confessed  with 
every  sign  of  sincere  repentance,  received  extreme  unction, 
and  died  quietly  shortly  after  imploring  Divine  mercy." 

Another  example  : — "On  Sunday,  about  eleven  o'clock  at 
night,  two  countrymen  who  were  not  sleepy  were  amusing 


HAYTIAN  POLICE,  PRISONS  AND  HOSPITALS.       153 

themselves  playing  with  dice  or  cards  under  the  gallery  of 
a  house  in  Courbe-street.  The  patrol  arrived.  One  of  the 
young  men  bolted  and  gained  the  courtyard  where  he  was 
accustomed  to  sleep.  The  other  was  not  so  prompt :  he 
is  caught:  a  blow  from  a  cocomacaque  stops  him.  Struck 
on  the  nape  of  the  neck,  he  fell  dead  without  uttering  a 
cry.  No  means  of  passing  this  unfortunate  off  as  a  thief." 
-(July    1 6th,    1887.) 

Other  instances  could  be  given,  but  these  suffice  to  show 
the  shameful  licence  permitted  to  the  police  in  Hayti,  and 
their  wanton  brutality.  Such  cases  are  sufficiently  horrible, 
and  I  adduce  them  to  show  what  another  Englishman 
—  one  who  was  not  only  on  the  spot  to  judge  for  himself, 
but  who  also  took  the  trouble  to  verify  details, — has  said 
upon  the  subject. 

He  bears  ample  witness  to  the  state  of  affairs  several 
years  ago,  and  I  can  add  on  personal  observation  that  they 
continue  to  be  in  precisely  the  same  condition  to-day. 
During  my  second  walk  through  the  streets  of  Port-au-Prince 
I  came  upon  a  Haytian  scene  of  arrest.  I  need  only  say 
that  the  prisoner  had  been  so  cruelly  battered  that  a  gen- 
tleman passing  offered  the  police  a  dollar  to  take  the  wretch- 
ed man  to  gaol  without  further  man-handling.  For  answer 
they  attacked  him  again  with  their  clubs.  The  man  was 
a  soldier  who  had  omitted  to  turn  up  to  drill  because  he 
was  doing  some  work  to  earn  a  few  centimes  to  buy  food. 


154  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

On  another  occasion  I  saw  a  captain  of  police  called  in 
by  a  negress  who  had  attempted  to  steal  from  a  store.  The 
owner  of  the  place,  a  Danish  subject,  naturally  interfered 
to  save  his  goods.  The  woman  went  out  and  returned  in 
a  few  moments  with  the  police  officer,  who  threatened  to 
shoot  the  Dane,  and  then  stood  by  while  the  woman,  under 
the  protection  of  his  revolver,  wreaked  her  vengeance  with 
a  heavy  stick.  The  upshot  of  this  case,  when  brought  into 
court,  was  a  sentence  of  imprisonment  on  the  Dane,  with 
the  option  of  a  heavy  fine. 

At  the  time  of  arrest  white  men  are  mostly  exempt  from 
violence,  although  there  have  been  several  exceptions.  But 
the  negro,  whether  guilty  or  only  under  suspicion,  or,  as 
I  have  shown,  really  innocent  of  any  offence  against  the 
law,  is  liable  to  murderous  treatment  both  at  the  time  of 
arrest  and  afterwards  in  the  prison  itself. 

Moreover,  the  condition  of  the  prisons  all  over  the  country 
is  almost  incredible  when  one  considers  that  they  exist  in 
the  midst  of  a  community  that  calls  itself  civiHsed.  I  am 
well  aware  that  the  curse  of  the  present  police  and  prison 
systems  is  a  source  of  shame  and  regret  to  every  Haytian 
who  has  the  good  of  his  country  at  heart.  Many  have 
spoken  of  the  matter  to  me,  but  the  Government  appear 
to  be  entirely  indifferent. 

A  little  brief  authority  is  poison  to  a  negro,  whose  inflated 
vanity  is  not  tempered  by  education  and  whose  intelhgence 


HAYTIAN  POLICE,  PRISONS  AND  HOSPITALS.       155 

seems  too  dwarfed  to  afford  hina  any  adequate  idea  of  the 
pain  he  inflicts.  One  can  only  account  for  it  on  the  sup- 
position, which  close  acquaintance  with  the  race  certainly 
goes  to  support,  that  negroes  have  far  duller  nerves  and 
are  less  susceptible  to  pain  than  P2uropeans.  They  recover 
from  injuries  that  no  white  man  could  hope  to  survive,  and 
that  without  tendance  or  medical  aid  of  any  kind. 

The  policeman  still  strides  through  the  land  in  the  name 
of  Liberty,  Equality,  and  Fraternity.  Within  the  limits  of 
his  office  he  has  absolute  power,  and  this  absolute  power 
is  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  man  the  mysterious  workings 
of  whose  mind  leads  him  occasionally  to  shoot  his  prisoner, 
not  while  resisting  arrest,  but  afterwards  for  having  resisted  it ! 
It  is  scarcely  surprising  that  few  negroes  from  other 
countries  become  naturalised  Haytians. 

Realism,  as  some  understand  the  word,  can  be  studied 
with  effect  in  the  prisons  of  the  Black  Republic. 

To  begin  with,  the  prisoner,  as  has  been  said,  usually 
enters  jail  suffering  from  maltreatment  more  or  less  severe 
at  the  hands  of  his  captors.  He  is  flung  among  his  fellows 
into  a  narrow  courtyard  to  live  or  die,  as  destiny  and  the 
strength  of  his  constitution  may  decide.  No  tendance  of 
any  kind  is  given  to  him,  whatever  his  condition,  nor  does 
the  State  provide  him  with  any  food.  He  begs  from  casual 
visitors,  or  his  friends  bring  him  provisions  when  they  can 
from  time  to  time. 


156  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

The  date  of  his  trial  in  the  courts  is  vague — persons  are 
now  in  the  jails  whose  very  crimes  are  forgotten,  but  there 
they  still  remain — the  police  or  soldiers  in  authority  keep 
him  in  subjection  according  to  rough-handed  customs  of 
their  own.  There  is  no  power  to  which  he  can  appeal,  for 
no  one  has  the  slightest  interest  in  his  fate.  Justice  and 
mercy  are  alike  denied  to  him — he  is  helpless. 

So  you  will  find  men  in  the  various  prisons  of  the  island 
herded  together  under  conditions  which  would  disgrace  the 
worst  cattle-boat  that  ever  crossed  the  Atlantic.  I  have 
seen  them  myself  in  more  than  one  jail  starving,  dirty, 
suffering,  without  the  barest  elements  of  sanitation  in  their 
surroundings. 

The  prison  of  Port-au-Prince  is  situated  in  the  middle  of 
the  town.  The  high,  pinkish  walls  are  set  on  the  top  with 
broken  glass.  It  is  divided  into  courts,  some  containing 
political  prisoners,  others  the  common  criminals.  A  narrow 
door,  through  which  you  are  obliged  to  pass  sideways, 
admits  you. 

When  I  entered,  the  General  of  the  prison  was  sitting 
cleaning  his  nails.  His  noble  name  I  did  not  gather,  al- 
though I  was  duly  introduced  to  him.  He  told  me  that 
I  could  not  see  the  prison  unless  I  had  a  pass  from  the 
Minister  of  the  Interior.  I  had  not  a  pass,  and  knew 
excellently  well  that  I  could  not  obtain  one,  for  the  Black 
Government,    though    they    take   no  care  to  cure  the  sores 


HAYTIAN  POLICE,  PRISONS  AND  HOSPITALS.       157 

of  the  body  politic,  are  careful  to  cover  them  from  the 
pubUc  gaze.  And  the  prison  of  Port-au-Prince  is  a  sore 
indeed. 

I  pressed  my  request,  but  it  was  explained  to  me  that 
the  law  wisely  forbade  the  visits  of  strangers,  as  they  not 
infrequently  brought  messages  for  the  political  prisoners. 
Finally,  I  put  forward  a  plea  which  procured  me  the  per- 
mission I  wanted. 

Under  the  guidance  of  a  soldier,  I  was  led  away  to  the 
left,  where  round  a  large  enclosure  prisoners  live  in  sheds. 
This  was  the  best  part  of  the  prison,  as  I  soon  found  out. 
The  men  had  little  articles  to  sell.  I  asked  my  guide  what 
crimes  they  were  guilty  of.  All  sorts  of  things —  uttering 
false  money,  theft,  and  murder. 

"Why  are  they  here,  while  others  are  so  much  worse 
off?"     I  asked. 

"They  pay  for  it." 

It  was  onl}'  by  sheer  perseverance  that  I  at  length  looked 
in  upon  the  quarters  which  the  Government  provides  for 
the  poorer  sort  of  malefactor.  It  is  difficult  to  choose  words 
to  describe  this  noisome  place.  Here  men  live  like  dogs, 
and  on  occasion  die  like  dogs  also.  I  believe  they  are 
carried  away  when  they  are  dead,  but  that  is  the  sole 
sanitary  precaution  taken. 

Doorless  cells  were  round  the  walls,  with  straw  upon  the 
earth    as    in    cages    for    wild    beasts.     Some  prisoners  were 


158  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

practically  naked ;  a  few  had  converted  worn-out  jackets  into 
loin-cloths;  all  were  in  the  last  stage  of  destitution.  Men, 
in  iron  anklets  with  a  short  chain  between,  stood  or  squatted 
round.  All  shades  of  colour  were  there,  from  yellow  ochre 
to  coal  black,  and  everyone  looked  half-starved.  Not  a 
few  had  gaping  wounds,  and  others  were  wearily  ill,  their 
backs  furred  with  sickness  and  neglect. 

In  the  centre  of  the  court  there  was  a  filthy  pool,  and 
pigs  rooted  about  amongst  the  accumulations  of  all  sorts 
which  strewed  the  ground.  Hercules  cleaned  the  Augean 
stables ;  I  scarcely  know  how  he  would  have  faced  a  task 
such  as   Hayti  could  offer  him  here. 

In  this  part  of  the  world  they  do  not  provide  political 
prisoners  with  every  luxury  short  of  freedom.  On  the 
contrary,  they  are  frequently  chained  to  a  bar  in  the  clothes 
they  stand  up  in,  and  it  is  not  impossible  to  see  a  gentle- 
man in  a  black  frock-coat  tethered  by  the  legs. 

Escape  from  the  court  where  the  rabble  are  confined 
seemed  to  be  childishly  easy,  but  the  negro  lacks  enterprise. 
As  in  freedom,  so  in  confinement,  he  takes  the  world  as  it 
comes.  There  are  several  hundreds  in  Port-au-Prince  prison, 
and  it  is  rightly  regarded  as  a  hotbed  of  disease. 

Later  on  I  visited  another  large  gaol  in  the  north  at 
Cap  Haytien.  There  also,  as  has  been  said  before,  the 
conscientious  seeker  after  realism,  upon  whom  perhaps  the 
slum  miseries  of  London  have  begun  to  pall,  would  find  not 


HAYTIAN  POLICE,  PRISONS  AND  HOSPITALS.       159 

only  the  hunger,  the  crowding,  the  disease,  and  the  misery 
reproduced,  but  withal  an  indescribable  residuum  calculated 
to  titillate  the  most  jaded  experience.  All  prisons  in  the 
Republic  have  the  same  essential  features,  and  it  is  no 
more  than  a  necessary  precaution  to  take  quinine  before 
going  on  a  tour  of  inspection. 

In  Cap  Haytien  as  in  Port-au-Prince  the  prison  was 
divided  into  two  chief  sections,  one  for  the  civil  and  one 
for  the  criminal  cases.  There  were  130  of  the  former  and 
280  of  the  latter,  all  dwelling  in  the  stifling  heat  of  two 
uncleansed,  roofless  yards.  One  man  I  spoke  to  had  been 
awaiting  trial  for  four  months,  another  for  three  years. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  imagine  a  white  man  imprisoned 
under  such  conditions  of  horror,  yet,  of  course,  it  sometimes 
happens.  For  instance,  if  you  have  the  misfortune  to  have 
your  house  burned  down,  there  is  a  law  in  Hayti  which 
regards  it  as  a  criminal  oftence. 

A  gentleman  living  in  a  certain  town  was  consigned  to 
the  criminal  side  of  the  local  gaol  on  this  charge  until 
investigation  should  be  made.  By  making  representations 
he  had  himself  removed  to  the  civil  side,  where,  after  a 
little  time,  he  fell  ill.  The  doctor  supposed  to  be  attached 
to  the  prison  did  not  visit  him.  He  became  worse,  and 
was  at  times  delirious,  but  his  request  to  be  allowed  to  see 
his  own  doctor  was  steadily  refused. 

When  the  prison  doctor  did  chance  to  come  in,  he  saw 


i6o  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

that  my  friend  was  very  likely  to  die,  and  knowing  that 
this  event  might  produce  unpleasant  complications — seeing 
that  the  prisoner  was  not  a  Haytian — he  ordered  him  to 
be  taken  to  the  military  hospital,  which  is  little  better  than 
the  gaol.  At  length,  on  payment  of  fifty  dollars,  he  was 
allowed  to  be  moved  to  the  Hospice,  where  he  was  nursed 
back  to  life  by  the  Soeurs  de  la  Sagesse,  a  French  sisterhood 
whose  gentle  care  is  the  only  tendance  the  sick  can  procure. 
Five  hundred  dollars  in  lawyers'  fees  was  subsequently  paid 
by  the  late  prisoner.  All  this,  in  addition  to  the  loss  of 
his  house  and  property,  on  account  of  an  accident  for  which 
he  was  not  in  any  way  responsible ! 

In  course  of  time,  I  visited  the  Military  Hospital,  a  place 
chiefly  distinguished  by  the  absence  of  everything  that  goes 
to  make  a  hospital — cleanliness,  comfort,  nurses.  In  the 
dreary  shed  which  goes  by  that  name  patients  and  attend- 
ants were  represented  by  a  man  lying  on  the  earthen 
floor,  suffering  from  a  broken  leg,  and  a  negress  smoking 
a  pipe  on  an  upturned  tub  by  the  doorway. 

It  seems  impossible  under  black  government  for  any 
undertaking  or  institution  to  be  cared  for,  or  kept  up,  or 
carried  on.  Some  individual,  in  an  ambitious  moment, 
makes  a  start,  but  the  beginning  of  any  enterprise  what- 
soever   is    also    the  end ;   no  one  bothers  to  go  on  with  it. 

The  Hospice  Justinien  at  Cap  Haytien  is,  however,  under 
French  management,  eight  Filles  de  la  Sagesse,  who  have 


HAYTIAN  POLICE,  PRISONS  AND  HOSPITALS.      i6i 

devoted  their  lives  to  the  cause  of  Haytian  humanity, 
taking  charge  of  it.  It  stands  on  the  edge  of  the  Champ 
de  Mars,  fronting  the  blue,  sun-scorched  bay. 

Crossing  from  the  Military  Hospital,  I  entered  the  Hospice, 
and  was  met  by  a  nun,  in  a  cool  grey  habit,  her  pale  face 
almost  as  white  as  the  starched  wimple  which  framed  it. 

She  led  me  up  a  flight  of  steps  into  a  piazza,  70  or  80 
yards  long,  grey-shuttered  and  shadowy,  with  whitewashed 
pillars  and  full  of  wandering  winds.  In  the  chapel  some 
function  was  in  progress,  and  the  faint  sound  of  chanting 
reached  us.  As  I  listened,  heat,  glare,  dirt,  and  Hayti  faded, 
and  I  was  bacV:  for  a  moment  in  another  land. 

Long  rows  of  black  bedsteads,  furnished  with  sheets 
spotless  as  snow,  lessened  away  into  long  perspective.  Few 
of  them  were  occupied,  and  by  one  or  two  sat  doleful 
figures  that  to  all  appearance  would  occupy  their  places 
on  earth  but  a  few  days  longer. 

"  Oh,  massa,  I  am  very  ill  1  "  said  oneto  me  in  English,  and  her 
face  broke  up.  "  And,  oh,  massa,  I  shall  die  here  in  the  quiet  " 

She  was  a  Jamaican  negress. 

Presently  I  was  taken  through  a  variety  of  rooms  to  the 
little  chapel,  where  an  old  priest's  fragile  hands  were  raised 
from  his  black  cassock  towards  the  cool  white  roof. 

Thence    on  through  the  men's  ward,  the  women's  ward, 

and  out  among  the  sick  on  the  piazza. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  him.'" 

II 


1 62  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

The  kindly-faced  nun  looked  up  at  me  and  made  a 
gesture  with  her  hands. 

"This,  that,  everything,"'  she  replied;  "they  have  terrible 
diseases  here  in  Hayti." 

The  man  was  sitting  on  a  bed  with  a  cloth  over  his 
head.  He  raised  it  as  I  spoke.  He  had  no  face,  nothing 
save  teeth  and  a  few  red  strips  of  flesh. 

"Poor  creatures!"  the  nun  said  softly;  "here,  at  the 
worst,  they  can  die  in  peace.  We  help  them  to  pass  their 
last  hours,  if  we  cannot  help  them  back  to  health." 

The  Haytian  easily  thinks  himself  sick,  and  takes  his 
physic  with  the  greatest  appreciation.  The  more  he  swal- 
lows the  greater  his  enjoyment.  Here  was  one  man  who 
told  me  his  head  ached,  and  very  black  his  face  looked 
against  the  purity  of  his  pillow.  A  fat  little  youngster 
was  laughing  and  romping,  riding  a  broom-stick  up  and 
down  along  the  piazza. 

After  that  I  visited  the  well-ordered  garden.  Vegetables, 
fruit,  and  flowers  of  all  climes — a  place  of  green  fragrances. 

The  Hospice  is  supported  by  private  subscriptions,  and 
deserves  to  be  well  maintained,  for  it  is  the  only  haven 
for  the  sick  in  a  country  where  illness  bespeaks  little  care 
for  the  sufferer. 

I  was  told  that  rich  patients  were  admitted,  who  could 
be  attended  by  any  doctor  they  chose ;  for  the  poor  the 
Hospice  provided  all  medical  treatment. 


HAYTIAN  POLICE,  PRISONS  AND  HOSPITALS.       163 

When  at  last  I  passed  out  from  under  the  broad  shadow 
of  the  front  piazza  under  the  palms,  I  went  dreaming.  The 
cool  and  the  peace  and  the  silence  and  the  cleanliness  and 
the  purity,  the  echo  of  Latin  song — it  might  have  been 
another  far-away  home  of  nuns  burled  in  green  Breton  woods. 

All  that  I  saw  in  the  Hospice  was  so  entirely  the  oppo- 
site of  all  that  you  find  everywhere  else  in  Hayti. 

"Is  monsieur  pleased?"   my  guide  asked  me  as  I  left. 

I  told  her  that  it  had  been  a  rest  even  to  see  the  place. 

She  bowed  to  me  with  a  quaint  courtesy,  and  so  we  parted. 

The  nominal  religion  of  Hayti  is  Roman  Catholic.  It  is 
the  religion  of  the  State,  and  an  archbishop  and  four 
bishops  are  supposed  to  be  paid  by  a  grant  from  the 
Republican  budget. 

Up  to  i860,  when  a  concordat  with  Rome  was  signed, 
the  condition  of  the  Catholic  clergy  in  the  island  was  a 
source  of  scandal.  So-called  priests,  whose  "creed  was 
need,"  set  themselves  up  in  the  various  parishes.  But  all 
that  was  altered  forty  years  ago.  Yet  the  process  of 
evangelising  the  island  goes  on  but  slowly.  Vaudoux  has 
a  strong  hold  upon  the  people.  Its  mummeries  and  horrors 
attract  them,  and  a  well-defined  fear  lies  at  the  root  of  all. 

The  Catholic  priests  have  a  hard  life  of  it,  whether  in 
the  unhealthy  suburbs  of  the  towns  or  travelling  through 
the  mountains  under  a  tropical  sun,  at  one  season  choked 
with  dust,  at  another  drenched  with  torrential  rains.    These 


i64  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

hardships,  joined  to  the  inadequate  food  which  alone  can 
be  obtained  in  the  country  districts,  brings  down  the  aver- 
age length  of  life  to  a  deplorably  low  figure. 

One  of  the  numberless  difl^culties  which  lies  in  their  way 
is  the  absorption  of  some  points  of  their  teaching  into  the 
mummery  of  fetishism.  For  instance,  I  have  myself  seen 
the  sign  of  the  Cross  made  on  the  forehead  with  the  blood 
of  a  goat  sacrificed  to  the  snake-god.  In  the  absence  of 
the  priest  some  of  the  chapels  in  which  they  are  wont  to 
celebrate  mass  have  been  used  for  the  rites  of  snake- 
worship.  The  Papalois,  the  arch-priests  of  the  cult,  refer 
to  the  priests  of  Catholicism  as  brother  ministers.  Yet  the 
Papalois  are  jealous  of  Catholic  influence,  and  do  all  in  their 
power  to  undermine  it. 

When  you  consider  that  no  priestcraft  has  so  strong  a 
hold  over  a  semi-savage  people  as  that  which  can  aid  its 
votaries  in  the  affairs  of  this  present  life,  you  will  see  why 
it  is  that  snake-worship  should  be  so  serious  a  rival  to 
Christianity.  The  Haytian  naturally  prefers  a  religion  which 
not  only  permits  but  abets  him  in  vengeance,  which  aids 
him  to  strike  secretly  at  his  enemy  with  poison.  Here, 
indeed,  the  negro  feels  that  reward  is  not  shadowy,  that 
he  is  getting  his  money's  worth. 

For  these  reasons  Christianity  labours  under  consider- 
able disabilities  in  the  Black  Republic.  Nevertheless,  the 
Republic    owes    much    to    Christianity :   all   charity,  all  self- 


HAYTIAN  POLICE,  PRISONS  AND  HOSPITALS.       167 

sacrifice,    all    care    for    the    sick  in  Hayti  spring  from  that 
source. 

But  since  the  Catholics  do  so  much  for  Hayti,  is  it  not 
inconsistent  to  fix  the  marriage-fees  so  high  that  the  peasant 
cannot  afford  to  marry?  These  fees  amount  to  many  dol- 
lars, as  much  perhaps  as  a  peasant-farmer  can  make  in  the 
round  of  the  year. 

The  natural  result  is  that  for  every  married  couple  there 
are  50  couples  "  places,"  as  they  call  it.  There  is  no  need 
to   say  more  on  the  subject.     It  speaks  for  itself. 

Hayti  boasts  of  its  religious  toleration,  nor  is  it  an  empty 
boast.  Many  sects  of  Protestants  not  only  exist,  but  are 
encouraged  in  their  efforts  to  evangelise.  One  writer  whose 
articles  had  something  of  a  run  in  Hayti  speaks  of  the 
Protestants  as  follows :  "  Let  us  try  to  Protestantise  the 
country  .  .  .  the  Protestant  is  economical,  respects  the  law, 
loves  reading,  is  a  friend  of  peace,  rich  in  gallant  hope 
and  perseverance  .  .  .  The  nations  that  are  dreamy,  sleepy, 
imaginative,  easily  discouraged,  depressed,  are  Catholic. . . . 
All  who  engage  in  commerce,  agriculture,  manufacture, 
progress,  enrich  themselves,  prosper,  are  Protestants."  Yet 
it  cannot  be  said  that  Protestantism  makes  any  way 
in  Hayti. 

I  have  referred  in  a  former  chapter  to  an  instance,  the 
only  one,  I  believe,  on  record,  when  human  sacrifice  was 
actually  beheld  by  a  white  man.     The  witness  was  a  young 


i68  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

French  priest  whom  Sir  Spenser  St.  John  met  at  the  palace 
of  the  Archbishop  in   Port-au-Prince. 

This  young  cure  had  persuaded  some  of  the  people  to 
take  him  to  a  Vaudoux  service.  They  blackened  his  face 
and  hands,  and  disguised  him  as  a  peasant.  After  a 
prelude  of  the  usual  frenzied  dancing  and  whirling,  a  cock 
and  a  goat  were  sacrificed. 

Later  on,  one  of  those  present  knelt  and  prayed  the 
Mamaloi  to  complete  the  sacrifice  by  the  offering  of  the 
"goat  without  horns."  Upon  this  a  child  was  disclosed, 
sitting  with  its  feet  bound.  As  the  Papaloi  approached 
the  victim  with  the  knife,  the  child  screamed  aloud,  and 
the  young  priest  rushed  forward,  shouting  "Spare  the 
child  1"  He  was  at  once  surrounded  by  his  friends,  who 
smuggled  him  away. 

On  his  return  to  the  town  he  tried  to  rouse  the  author- 
ities, but  they  would  do  nothing  until  the  morning,  when 
on  going  to  the  spot  they  found  the  remains  of  the  feast 
and  the  boiled  skull  of  the  child.  No  action  was  taken 
against  the  criminals,  but  the  priest  was  deported  under 
the  excuse  that  it  was  dangerous  for  him  to  remain  in  the 
neighbourhood. 

There  are  undoubted  difficulties  in  the  way  of  evangelis- 
ing Hayti. 


CHAPTER     IX. 

A   LIVING    CITV    WITHIN    A    DEAD    ONE. 

When  I  reached  Cap  Haytien  revolution  was  in  the  air. 

The  "  OHnde  Rodriguez"  came  to  anchor,  and  I  went 
ashore  — to  be  received  as  a  conspirator. 

I  could  not  conceive  the  reason,  but  the  fact  remained 
that  I,  the  correspondent  of  the  "Daily  Express,"  landing 
in  Cap  Haytien,  produced  all  the  effect  of  a  stone  falling 
into  a  pool  of  shrimps. 

When  I  arrived  they  were  expecting  a  Minister;  the 
troops  and  Generals,  in  about  equal  numbers,  had  turned 
out  in  full  gorgeousness  to  meet  him.  Drums  were  beating 
and  flags  were  flying,  but  when  it  became  known  that  the 
expected  grandee  had  not  put  in  an  appearance  the  military 
and  the  twenty-seven  mounted  Generals  took  themselves  off. 

As  I  had  come  from  a  port  within  the  borders  of  the 
Republic  I  hardly  expected  any  trouble  with  the  Customs, 


T70  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

but  herein  I  found  myself  mistaken.  My  light  baggage 
was  pounced  upon  by  a  tall  soldier,  and,  in  spite  of  remon- 
strances and  protestations,  vv-as  carried  into  the  presence  of 
a  gold-laced  General,  who  ordered  me  to  open  it. 

I  explained  that  coming  from  Port-au-Prince  my  effects 
were  not  liable  to  inspection. 

"Have  you  letters.^" 

"  Certainly." 

"Give  the  letters  to  me." 

The  scene  had  shifted  towards  the  door  into  the  sun- 
light, and  a  crowd  of  guff'awing  negroes  gathered  to  super- 
intend the  discomfiture  of  le  hlanc.  An  assistant  of  the 
General's  rummaged  through  my  belongings  until  he  came 
upon  the  MSS.  of  these  papers  and  a  few  private  letters, 
which  things  were  clearly  suspicious  and  produced  a  profound 
sensation. 

The  General  seized  them.     "What  has  le  d/anc  got  here?" 

I  explained  that  I  was  in  the  habit  of  keeping  a  diary 
of  my  daily  doings.  My  private  letters  were  impounded 
on  the  spot.  Searching  questions  were  then  put  to  me 
concerning  my  name,  my  destination,  and  my  business  in 
the  Republic.  Soon  an  official  informed  me  that  I  was 
at  liberty  to  go  away.  This  was  not  to  be  thought  of, 
as  I  knew  in  my  heart  that,  with  my  manuscript,  I  was 
leaving  my  liberty  and,  possibly,  my  life  behind  me ;  for 
Hayti  is  a  country  in  which  it  is  by  no  means  healthy  to 


A  TJVING  CITY  WITHIN  A  DEAD  ONE.  171 

write  down  exactly  what  the  traveller  may  see.  You  must 
not  under  any  circumstances  express  a  political  sentiment, 
least  of  all,  ye  gods,  on  paper !  Why,  only  the  other  day 
a  gentleman  of  sporting  tendencies  shouted  "  A  bas  President 
Sam"  in  the  street  at  Port-au-Prince.  A  negro  guard  leaped 
out  of  the  shadows  and  shot  him  dead.  I  remembered 
this  also,  that  no  English  Consul  existed  within  two  hundred 
miles  of  me. 

There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  produce  my  Foreign 
Office  passport  and  to  speak  vaguely  of  my  position  as  a 
British  subject  and  the  long  arm  of  the  British  navy.  I  talk- 
ed of  the  "Powerful"  and  the  "Terrible."  They  whispered 
together,  and,  after  a  considerable  interval,  returned  my 
notes.    May  the  shadow  of  the  British  Empire  never  grow  less  ! 

The  official  activity  was  afterwards  made  clear  to  me. 
An  ague-fit  of  revolutionary  hankerings  had  swept  across 
Northern  Hayti,  and  at  the  time  I  chanced  to  arrive  the 
Government  were  still  keeping  a  wide-open  eye  on  all 
correspondence.  With  my  MSS.  in  my  kit  I  lived  on  without 
having  attained  to  either  the  picturesqueness  or  the  incon- 
venience which  inevitably  attach  to  a  political  schemer. 
But  let  us  explore  Cap  Haytien. 

They  say  that  your  outlook,  or  perhaps  I  should  say 
your  inlook,  upon  a  country  is  largely  influenced  by  the 
door  through  which  you  happen  to  enter  it. 

Hayti    is    no    exception  to  the  rule.     Her  three  gates  of 


172  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

ingress  present  each  of  them  a  definite  and  characteristic 
feature. 

That  of  Port-au-Prince  is  dirt.  That  of  Jacmel  is  fire- 
scorched  and  gutted  black  interiors.  But  Cap  Haytien  is 
a  mushroom  town  of  wood,  built  among  imposing  stone 
ruins. 

Go  in  whatever  direction  you  like  the  sights  that  meet 
you  are  the  same.  Ruined  houses,  ruined  aqueducts,  ruined 
fountains  of  stone,  ruined  walls,  ruined  forts.  She  bears 
upon  her  the  indelible  impress  of  the  tremendous  earth- 
quake of  1842.  From  the  sea  the  town  is  but  a  little 
cluster  of  dwellings  heaped  together  beneath  the  wooded 
mountains  in  the  corner  of  a  big  purple  plain.  Her  jetties 
are  broken,  black,  and  old  ;  the  usual  wreck  lies  ashore  in 
her  harbour — there  is  one  in  the  harbour  of  every  important 
port  in  the  Repubhc — but  once  ashore  you  are  in  the 
cleanest  and  the  best  kept  town  in  all  Hayti.  The  principal 
street  fronts  down  almost  directly  on  the  harbour;  it  is 
wide  and  perhaps  two  miles  long.  Once  in  the  old  French 
days  the  town  was  the  centre  of  luxury  and  fashion.  It 
was  called  the  "little  Paris"  of  the  West.  Since  then  ruin 
and  devastation  have  swept  over  it. 

Half  the  hillside  was  torn  away  by  the  shock  which 
annihilated  the  city.  The  dread  earthquake  shook  down  or 
seriously  injured  almost  every  house,  two-thirds  of  the  inhabit- 
ants were  buried  beneath  the  fallen  masonry;  bands  of  blacks 


A  LIVING  CITY  WITHIN  A  DEAD  ONE.  173 

rushed  in  from  mountain  and  plain,  not  to  aid  in  saving 
their  wretched  countrymen,  whose  cries  and  groans  could 
be  heard  for  two  or  three  days,  but  to  rob  the  stores  and 
houses,  while  the  officers  and  men  of  the  garrison,  instead 
of  attempting  to  keep  order,  joined  in  plundering  the  small 
remnants  of  what  the  surviving  inhabitants  could  save  from 
the  tottering  ruins.     What  a  people! 

An  American  journaHst  is  said  to  have  heard  the  above 
story  of  the  earthquake  and  the  looting  of  the  town.  His 
comment  was :  "  My  aunt  I  What  copy  for  any  duck  who 
happened  to  be  browsing  around!" 

To-day  Cap  Haytien  is  like  a  sparrow's  egg  laid  in  the 
deserted  nest  of  an  eagle.  Wherever  you  walk  you  are 
among  old  ruins,  knee  high  and  over-grown.  Among  them 
have  cropped  up  the  wooden  dwellings  of  the  present 
masters  of  the  land.  The  hills  which  back  the  town  are 
guiltless  of  human  habitation.  Away  to  the  north,  guarding 
the  harbour  mouth,  is  Fort  Picolet,  garrisoned  by  two  sol- 
diers. It  contains  a  few  old  cannon,  which  lean  their  black 
nozzles  over  the  ruined  parapets  like  a  colony  of  basking  seals. 

It  is  a  common  saying  in  the  Republic  that  no  revolution 
can  be  successful  unless  it  emanates  at  the  Cape.  It  was 
the  seat  of  Government  under  the  Emperor  Christophe, 
that  terrible  and  masterful  figure,  to  the  days  of  whose 
iron  rule  the  greater  virility,  energy,  and  enterprise  of  the 
population  of  the  north  are  often  attributed. 


174  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHFrE. 

The  town  itself  is  well  laid  out,  its  cobbled  streets  are 
the  cleanest  I  have  seen  in  Hayti ;— not  too  clean,  you  under- 
stand, but  still  far  in  advance  of  those  of  the  capital  or 
pestiferous  Jacmel.  And  the  people  are  superior  also. 
They  work  harder,  the  soldiers  have  straighter  backs  and 
less  ragged  uniforms.  These  things  are  in  some  measure 
due  to  General  Nord  Alexis,  the  head  of  the  department. 
He  is  an  old  man  now,  but  if  all  the  officials  of  the  Re- 
public did  her  as  good  service  as  this  high-handed  old 
General  the  country  would  be  a  wholesomer  and  a  happier 
land. 

Spread  in  all  the  main  streets  are  sail-cloths  covered 
with  coffee  berries,  whose  shining  green  bears  witness  to 
their  high  quality.  Wild-eyed  men,  with  naked  torsos, 
toil  shouting  under  sacks  of  it;  bearded  natives  (whose 
extraordinary  likeness  to  the  Riffs  of  North  Africa  forces 
itself  upon  you),  driving  carts  drawn  by  four,  mules,  take 
it  with  an  accompaniment  of  indescribable  din  to  the  wharf, 
and  there  another  horde  screams  for  possession  of  it.  In 
the  South  you  do  not  see  men  working  like  that. 

And  all  this  riotous  life  boils  and  struggles  in  the  midst 
of  the  old  dead  city,  within  the  broken  shell  of  its  fallen 
palaces  and  aqueducts  and  baths,  whose  walls  have  mostly 
sunk  to  the  ebb-tide  level  of  destruction,  and  are  hardly 
more  than  ridges  above  the  ground.  Time  and  weather 
and  the  strong  soft  fingers  of  tropical  vegetation  are  slowly 


A  LIVING  CITY  WITHIN  A  DEAD  ONE.  177 

wiping  out  the  remembrance  of  them  from  the  face  of  the 
earth.  To-day  an  occasional  Ilaytian  will  point  out  with 
pride  the  tin  erection  of  the  new  custom-house,  proudly 
marked  with  the  name  of  the  reigning  President.  The 
white  man  built  a  hundred  years  ago,  the  black  builds  now. 

Apropos  of  the  threatened  revolution  I  have  alluded  to, 
an  extremely  frightened  gentleman  once  presented  himself 
at  the  British  Consulate,  and  begged  the  Consul  to  advise 
him  what  course  he  had  better  pursue  if  there  should 
happen  to  be — as  was  then  most  likely— an)'  shooting  in 
the  streets.  The  Consul,  who  was  used  to  Hayti,  slowly 
stroked  his  beard. 

"What  should  you  do?"  he  said  slowly.  "  If  I  were 
you,  Mr.  Blank,  I  should  at  once  get  out  of  the — ah — line 
of  fiahl" 

Hayti  is  a  chameleon.  She  has  been  a  Republic,  an 
Empire,  then  once  more  Republic,  again  an  Empire,  and 
now  a  Republic  over  again. 

Her  history  is  one  gigantic  patchwork  of  revolutions. 
Whatever  she  may  be  like  when  her  political  temperature 
is  normal,  she  changes  completely  when  it  goes  up  a  degree 
or  two.  With  her  rulers  a  few  suspicions  are  enough  to 
be  magnified  into  an  attempted  revolution,  and,  when  once 
her  temperature  reaches  this  fever  point,  strange  things  of 
many  kinds  occur.  Having  been  a  suspected  conspirator 
myself,  do  I  not  write  with  the  diploma  of  experience? 


178  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

Everyone  is  interested  in  revolution  tales.  Here  are  some 
true  ones  from  the  best  forcing-bed  in  the  world  for  such 
productions.  They  are  dramatic  tales  fitting  this  land  of 
tropical  skies,  and  pronunciamentos,  and  vengeful  Presidents. 
But  these  stories  are  something  more  than  true  and  drama- 
tic ;  they  were  once  everyday  occurrences.  The  following 
are  selected  at  hap-hazard  from  a  thousand  such,  and  they 
all  happened  during  the  last  two  revolutions.  The  point 
to  bear  in  mind  is  that  they  are  pretty  sure  to  happen 
again  during  the  next;  for  once  the  delirium  of  political 
excitement  and  strife  begins  to  take  hold  upon  the  people 
they  break  away  from  the  leash  of  civilisation. 

Upon  the  death  of  President  Salomon  the  usual  sanguin- 
ary struggle  took  place  for  the  possession  of  power,  and 
it  was  in  the  course  of  this  struggle  that  the  ominous  and 
daring  personality  of  General  Dardignac  forged  to  the  front. 
He  was  an  adherent  of  Legitime,  who  eventually  seized 
the  Presidential  chair.  Dardignac  was  a  mulatto  with  an 
iron-grey  moustache  and  determined  eyes,  bloodshot  with 
staring  through  dust  and  sun. 

Now  Dardignac  was  one  of  those  strong  men  who  make 
more  enemies  than  friends.  On  one  occasion  he  was  going 
north  with  troops  on  a  Riviere  steamer  (she  trades  between 
the  Haytian  ports  to  this  day).  About  dawn  they  put  in 
for  supplies  at  a  little  seaside  town,  and  some  fresh  pas- 
sengers came  aboard.     While  breakfasting  Dardis^nac  heard 


A  LIVING  CITY  WITHIN  A  DEAD  ONE.  179 

on  the  deck  above  him  two  voices,  one  of  which  he  had 
reason  to  know  too  well.  It  was  that  of  a  prominent  per- 
sonage nicknamed  Rude  Raide,  who  for  public  or  personal 
reasons  had  crossed  the  designs  of  Dardignac  in  past  days. 
The  General  went  on  deck. 

"My  friend,"  he  said,  "I  have  been  looking  forward  to 
a  meeting  such  as  this  for  years." 

Rude  Raide  turned  green  and  made  a  feeble  attempt  to 
offer  conventional  greetings.     Dardignac  called  his  men. 

"Tie  him  up!"  said  he,  and  went  below  to  finish  his 
meal. 

When  he  returned  the  affair  developed.  He  ordered  the 
steamer  to  be  stopped.  Fire-bars  were  tied  to  Rude  Raide's 
ankles,  and  with  his  own  hand  Dardignac  shoved  him 
overboard.  Those  who  saw  it  say  that  Rude  Raide  wriggled 
down  upright  into  the  depths  of  the  sea.  Then  Dardignac 
laughed  aloud ;  it  was  his  form  of  humour. 

During  the  same  revolution  he  fought  a  battle  near 
Grand  Saline ;  the  casualties  mounted  up  to  heavy  numbers 
on  each  side,  which  is  not  a  very  common  characteristic 
of  this  internecine  warfare.  Seven  prisoners  were  taken. 
Dardignac,  seated  in  an  arm-chair,  ordered  them  to  be 
brought  before  him.  By  his  directions  they  were  placed 
in  a  semicircle,  and  with  a  small  Winchester  he  shot  them 
one  after  the  other  from  his  chair  with  his  own  hand. 
Very  brutal,  of  course ;  but  there  was  another  and  a  no 


i8o  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

less  definite  side  to  the  General's  character.  He  was  a 
man  of  fantastic  bravery.  He  is  known  to  have  captured 
one  of  the  enemy's  ramparts  unaided,  riding  at  it  armed  only 
with  a  cocomacaque  club.  He  sat  in  full  view  upon  the 
ramparts,  being  shot  at  (and  wounded),  until  the  last  man 
of  his  following  was  in. 

At  another  engagement  he  was  wounded  in  the  groin. 
To  show  his  contempt  of  pain,  he  was  in  the  habit  of 
giving  audiences  while  the  doctor  probed  his  wound,  and 
more  than  once  the  last  footfall  of  his  retiring  officers  had 
hardly  died  away  before  he  fainted. 

The  end  of  his  career  was  tragic.  He  was  shot  by  his 
own  soldiers. 

As  for  the  lower  class  of  Haytian,  he  fights  in  a  revolu- 
tion, and  knows  not  why  he  fights.  The  leader  has  his 
stake  in  the  contest,  the  soldier  has  none ;  he  merely  runs 
the  chance  of  losing  all  he  ever  possessed — his  life.  Be 
the  President  who  he  may,  the  private  remains  the  same 
ragged,  unfed  private  still. 

From  this  standpoint  a  revolution  is  pathetic.  Here  are 
these  ignorant  soldiers  fighting,  reinforced  by  a  rabble  of 
wild  peasants  and  vociferous  wharf-side  negroes,  helping  to 
turn  things  upside  down,  and  to  make  that  peculiar  con- 
coction—  Haytian  history — and  getting  no  good  out  of  it 
for  themselves.  So  it  goes  on :  always  a  few  military  oper- 
ations,   a    good  deal  of  promiscuous  shooting  in  the  street 


A  LIVING  CITY  WITHIN  A  DEAD  ONE.  i8i 

and  round  corners,  with  a  great  deal  of  talk ;  and  as  an 
aftermath  pronunciamentos,  imprisonments,  and  a  heavy  bill 
of  mortality  within  prison  gates  or  against  the  arsenal  wall. 

The  revolutionist,  it  is  true,  wears  no  gloves  of  mercy, 
but  the  negro  is  hard  to  kill.  Somewhere  about  1888  a 
bold  vanguard,  numbering  some  five  men,  marched  into  a 
village  upon  the  banks  of  the  Artibonite.  The  villagers, 
believing  the  main  body  to  be  close  behind,  fled.  The 
famous  five  seized  food  and  ate,  maltreated  women  and 
children,  and  otherwise  enjoyed  themselves  each  after  his 
kind.  The  village  people,  who  were  hiding  in  the  woods, 
presently  found  out  that  the  five  men  were  unsupported,  so 
they  flocked  back  to  vengeance.  Two  of  the  five  they 
killed,  two  escaped,  and  the  fifth  unfortunate  was  taken 
prisoner.  They  cropped  his  ears  as  they  cut  a  pig's,  they 
cut  the  tip  off  his  nose,  they  slit  his  mouth  to  his  neck. 
To  crown  all  they  broke  both  his  legs  with  musket  balls, 
and  threw  what  half  an  hour  before  had  been  a  man  into 
a  cactus  bush. 

Meantime  the  two  fugitives  had  returned  to  the  camp,  and 
on  their  representations  a  force  was  at  once  sent  out  to 
immolate  that  gentle  village.  When  the  butchery  was  over, 
groans  were  heard  to  issue  from  the  cactus  bush.  They 
pulled  out  the  wreck  of  a  man.  He  recovered.  It  is  hard 
to  believe  this  story,  but  there  is  the  scarred  man  walking 
about  Port-au-Prince  to-day. 


1 82  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

I  do  not  know  whether  anyone,  allured  by  my  descrip- 
tion of  the  country,  feels  moved  to  emigrate  to  Hayti, 
there  to  carve  out  a  career  for  himself.  To  such  I  make 
a  free  present  of  the  following  revolutionary  prescrip- 
tion. In  a  revolution  the  theory  for  the  individual  is — go 
for  your  worst  enemy,  and  go  quickly,  or  you  will  find  him 
coming  for  you.  When  you  have  killed  him,  send  in  the 
bill  to  whatever  Government  has  come  into  power,  and 
demand  a  reward  for  patriotism.  It  is  by  working  on  this 
simple  principle  that  many  big  local  reputations  have  been 
made  in  Hayti. 

When  first  I  arrived  in  the  island  the  country  was  drift- 
ing pretty  surely  towards  revolution.  The  people  were 
starving  and  discontented.  Exchange  stood  at  190,  and 
all  because  the  price  of  coflee  had  fallen.  Then  came  the 
news  that  an  outbreak  of  the  plague  in  Brazil  had  scotched 
the  export  of  coffee  from  that  quarter,  exchange  leaped 
back  to  120  and  iio  in  four  days,  and  the  Government 
was  saved.     Even  the  bubonic  plague  has  its  uses. 


CHAPTER    X. 

THE   CITADEL   OF   THE   BLACK   NAPOLEON. 

I  LINGERED  Oil  at   Cap  Haytien. 

For  days  I  had  waited. 

For  days  it  had  become  my  habit  to  gaze  across  at  the 
citadel,  which  I  had  travelled  the  length  of  Hayti  to  visit. 
There  it  was,  seeming  small  as  a  crow's  nest  upon  its 
mountain  peak  far  away  across  the  plains. 

For  days  word  was  brought  to  me  that  the  journey  was 
hopeless — it  could  not  be  attempted. 

Why?     The  roads  were  impassable. 

First,  because  the  rain  had  increased  the  fords  and  flooded 
the  lower-lying  parts  of  the  intervening  plain. 

Second,  because  the  sun  had  dried  the  mud  to  the  con- 
sistency of  glue,  and  no  horse  could  do  otherwise  than  stick 
helplessly  in  it. 

Lastly,  because  there  had  been  more   rain. 

Then  I  saw  my   opportunity. 


WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE.  184 

With  Haytian  volubility  I  was  implored  to  wait  a  week, 
a  month,  a  fortnight,  until,  at  the  least,  the  ground  was 
passable. 

Through  the  kindness  of  a  gentleman  to  whom  I  am 
most  deeply  indebted,   I  secured  a  guide  and  set  out. 

That  road !  How  shall  I  bring  it  before  you  ?  Take  a 
farmyard,  a  thunderstorm,  a  horse-pond,  a  fat  ploughed- 
field,  mix  them  thoroughly,  spread  over  with  unwholesome 
green  scum,  and  you  have  it.  Here  and  there  you  came 
upon  a  pool  of  the  consistency  of  porridge.  A  negro  fell 
into  one  just  outside  a  village ;  it  rose  shoulder  high  upon 
him.  You  tacked  along  like  a  boat  in  a  shifting  wind. 
To  my  middle  I  was  sopped  in  mud.  Never  before  did 
I  realise  the  beauty  of  the  profession  followed  by  those 
gentlemen  who  drive  water-tight  carts  round  London,  gath- 
ering up  fluid  street-slime.  And  the  mud  smelt,  hot,  thick, 
marshy.  Up  to  the  waist  I  was  a  mudlark,  above  that  I 
was  spotted  in  black  on  my  yellow  khaki  like  an  Ethiopian 
leopard. 

The  vagaries  of  the  road  irritated  one.  Across  the  level 
plain  it  took  you  meandering  half  a  mile  out  of  your  way 
for  every  three-quarters  you  went  forward.  My  first  object- 
ive was  Millot,  where  I  was  to  pass  the  night.  It  was  a 
pleasant  prospect,  that  of  sleeping  wet  to  the  skin,  yet  I 
knew  it  to  be  unavoidable,  for  my  small  change  of  clothes 
had  sunk  long  since  into  a  sticky  and  revolting  mass. 


z 

o 

H 

X 
H 


THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  BLACK  NAPOLEON.         1S5 

My  guide,  Petit  Col  by  name,  on  hearing  that  I  was 
an  Englishman,  christened  me  John.  "This  way,  John," 
he  would  say.  And  "John"  followed  meekly  for  a  time, 
until  he  discovered  that  Petit  Col  was  as  innocent  as  him- 
self of  the  geography  of  the  quagmires.  Then  "John" 
led,  encouraged  by  the  shouts  of  his  retainer.  Through 
morasses,  into  sloughs,  wading  rivers  of  mud,  you  entered 
into  the  spirit  of  it  after  a  time.  ''  The  muddier  the  mer- 
rier." As  long  as  I  did  not  fall  bodily  into  a  hole  I  ceased 
to  care  what  happened.  Yet  the  first  splash  which  painted 
me  black  from  ear  to  mouth  had  produced  unseemly  language. 
The  sky  above  was  cloudless  blue,  and  the  sunlight,  scalding 
yellow  on  the  road,  made  the  black  surface  of  the  slime 
dance  and  steam. 

Much  in  the  same  manner  we  were  still  toiling  on  when 
sunset  found  us.  At  last  we  came  in  sight  of  Millot,  the 
halfway  house  to  the  citadel  of  La  Ferriere,  which  was 
built  at  infinite  cost  of  human  life  some  eighty  years  ago 
by  the  black  Emperor  of  Hayti,  Christophe,  or,  as  he  loved 
to  call  himself,   Henry  the  First. 

Millot  itself  is  but  a  collection  of  a  few  hundred  huts 
regular  as  the  ranks  of  a  regiment.  Armed  with  letters 
and  permits  I  rode  into  the  village  at  the  rising  of  the 
moon.  In  the  shifting  lights  the  place  reminded  me  of 
Broadway  in  the  Cotswolds  of  happy  memory.  Over  the 
huts  a  blue  haze  hune  low  under  the  china-blue  reflections 


1 86  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

of  the  moon.  This  haze  was  made  by  the  smoke  of  many 
fires,  that  winked  and  burned  small  in  the  distance  as 
fireflies.  Riding  nearer,  one  saw  black  forms  crouching 
on  their  haunches,  and  other  black  figures  dancing  in  the 
glow.  In  some  hut  at  the  back  they  were  beating  a  drum 
with  the  rolling  booming  finger-motion  which  has  come 
from  Africa.  And  through  this  blue  fog  it  was  necessary 
for  the  traveller  to  seek  out  the  General  de  la  Place,  that 
local  potentate  who  is  about  as  absolute  a  monarch  as  the 
Czars  of  Russia  used  to  be,  but  are  no  more. 

The  General  was  not  at  his  house,  a  straw-thatched 
building,  consisting  of  three  rooms  and  a  narrow  brick- 
paved  verandah.  Nor  was  he  at  the  little  guard-house  in 
the  central  street.  So  we  must  seek  him  away  up  the 
hill  through  the  pufiy  blue  haze. 

''Qui  vive?'"'  The  challenge  was  slung  at  us,  as  it 
seemed,   from  nowhere. 

'■^  Ayizlaisy  We  moved  forward  to  find  a  dozen  soldiers 
seated  by  a  fire  in  the  gloom  of  a  wall-less  shed  very  like 
an  English  cart-house.  They  caught  up  their  rifles  and 
proceeded  to  ask  our  business  with  one  voice.  I  mentioned 
that  I  wished  to  see  the  General  de  la  Place,  for  whom  I 
had  letters. '  As  usual,  they  attempted  to  confiscate  them, 
but  upon  one  of  their  number  spelling  out  the  addresses 
they  became  polite.     Endless  chattering  followed. 

At    last,    weary    of  waiting,    wet  from  the  rigours  of  the 


THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  BLACK  NAPOLEON.         187 

road,  I  handed  over  my  letters,  and  begged  the  officer  of 
the  post  to  inform  the  General  that  I  should  do  myself 
the  honour  of  calling  upon  him  to  pay  my  respects  in  the 
morning.  Then  I  followed  Petit  Col  down  the  hill  to  find 
some  place  wherein  to  sleep. 

The  morning  came  with  a  grateful  smell  of  strong  sweet 
coffee.  Then  it  was  on-saddle  again  after  a  tin-full  of  that 
same  excellent  coffee,  and  away,  guided  by  a  large-headed, 
thin-legged  four-year-old,  to  pay  my  promised  visit  to  the 
General  de  la  Place. 

Now,  the  General  de  la  Place  holds  an  authority  from 
which  there  is  no  sort  of  appeal.  This  time  I  found  him 
at  home.  I  rode  into  his  yard  and  dismounted,  not  without 
some  qualms  as  to  the  possible  failure  of  my  expedition. 
The  Government  are  very  much  opposed  to  permitting 
foreigners  to  inspect  the  fortress  of  La  Ferriere,  but  they 
are  diplomatic  in  their  refusals.  The  General  at  Cap  Haytien 
will  graciously  give  you  a  pass,  which  the  General  at  Millot 
invariably  cancels.  As  all  this  had  been  explained  to  me 
before  starting  I  was,  naturally,  apprehensive.  For  a  long 
time  no  one  had  been  allowed  to  see  La  Ferriere — was  I 
going  to  be  more  fortunate  ? 

The  General  was  a  large  coal-black  man,  in  a  frock-coat 
of  shepherd's  plaid  check  and  a  cream-coloured  military 
cap.  He  was  most  affable.  The  usual  compliments  and 
some    polite    remarks    passed     between    us.     He    was,    he 


i88  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHLrE. 

told  me,  thirty-five  years  old,  and  I?  I  trusted  him  with 
the  secret  of  my  age,  and  we  found  ourselves  at  once  on 
an  excellent  footing.  In  his  remarks  about  the  citadel  he 
was  vague.  Afterwards  I  discovered  the  reason  of  the 
prohibition  to  visit  it. 

The  Emperor  Christophe  is  said  to  have  died  worth 
fifteen  millions,  and  this  hoard  of  treasure  no  one  has  yet 
discovered.  But  some  time  ago  a  man — his  name  is  of 
no  import — appeared  at  a  Cap  Haytien  gaming-table,  and 
tempted  luck  with  what  ?  Spanish  doubloons  1  No  less 
than  that  most  romantic  and  piratical  coin?  He  did  not 
deny  having  discovered  the  treasure  of  Christophe.  The 
Government  heard  of  it.  Hippolyte  was  President  at  the 
time,  and  Hippolyte  sent  for  him. 

"  Confide  in  me,"  said  Hippolyte,  "  and  become  a  General !  " 

Lured  by  this  tempting  bait,  the  discoverer  came  perilously 
near  to  giving  up  his  secret,  but  not  quite.  He  was  then 
sent  back  to  the  north  to  Cap  Haytien,  where  the  General 
made  the  mistake  of  threatening  him.  The  limpet  might 
have  yielded  to  caresses,  but  the  finger  of  force  closed  his 
mouth.  He  was  put  into  prison,  and  there  by  every  bar- 
barous means  they  strove  to  wrench  his  secret  from  him. 
Yet  ever  he  bore  his  tortures,  and  closed  his  mouth  the 
tighter. 

At  length  they  set  him  free,  and  had  his  movements 
carefully    shadowed,    but  with  no  result.     Finally  hundreds 


THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  BLACK  NAPOLEON.         189 

of  soldiers  were  sent  to  excavate.  These  again  failed  to 
find  a  trace  of  gold,  and  there  the  matter  rests  unto  this 
day.  The  discoverer  is  still  at  large  with  fifteen  millions 
locked  up  in  his  inviolable  silence.  Strange,  bloodstained, 
old-world  money  like  to  Kidd's  treasures,  which  are  said 
to  be  buried  near  by  in  the  Haytian  Island  of  Tortuga. 

But  to  return  to  the  General  de  la  Place.  We  exchanged 
cards,  and  from  his  I  learned  that  he  was  "  General  Anahim 
Amazan,  General  de  Division  aux  Armees  de  la  Republique, 
Aide-de-camp  honoraire  de  son  P'xcellence  le  President 
d'Haiti,  Commandant  de  la  Place  et  de  la  Commune  de 
Millot."  In  poor  exchange  he  read  mine,  which  held  no- 
thing but  my  name.  I  shall  always  look  back  upon  General 
Amazan  with  gratitude.  Nowhere  could  you  meet  with 
more  courtesy  than  he  showed  to  the  bedraggled  wanderer 
who  presented  himself  before  him. 

The  creator  of  La  Ferriere  has  been  called  the  Black 
Napoleon.  Black  as  the  purest  African  blood  could  make 
him,  and  born  a  slave,  he  yet  showed  himself,  in  the 
afterdays  of  his  power,  to  be  possessed  of  a  right  royal 
taste    for    splendid  architecture  of  the  most  enduring  type. 

The  mountain  upon  whose  crest  the  fortress  of  La 
Ferriere  is  built  takes  two  hours  of  hard  climbing  to 
surmount.  But  you  have  evidences  of  Christophe's  ambitions 
long  before  you  arrive  at  it.  He  loved  b^oad  and  spacious 
roads    and  noble  vistas,  and  these  he  forced  his  people  to 


igo  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

hew  out  for  him  from  rock  and  plain  and  forest.  But  they 
are  gone  now,  wiped  out  of  sight  by  those  two  remorseless 
dissolvents  of  the  results  of  human  labour,  neglect  and 
nature. 

Riding  out  of  Millot  I  saw  what  is  left  of  the  black 
ruler's  chief  Palace  of  Pleasure,  Sans-Souci.  He  had  many 
other  handsome  dwellings,  country-seats  scattered  about  the 
rich  plain  of  the  Artibonite,  bearing  names  which  smack 
rather  of  the  East  than  of  the  West — "Queen's  Delight," 
"The  Glory,"  "The  King's  Beautiful  View,"  and  so  forth. 
Sans-Souci  is  built  on  a  rising  ground  at  the  apex  of  a 
narrow  and  lovely  ravine,  set  between  steep  green  hills. 
It  stands  a  grey  ruin  of  lost  effort,  among  the  waste  of  its 
fallen  gardens.  The  solid  hne  of  stone  steps  leading  up  to 
it  still  remains,  though  green  things  are  pushing  between 
the  slabs. 

You  look  up  into  the  face  of  the  main  building  above. 
It  is  a  pale  and  shattered  face,  and  from  some  of  its  blank 
windows  trees  are  growing  outwards.  But  there  is  not  a 
memory  connected  with  it  that  could  raise  a  regret  or 
make  you  wish  to  perpetuate  one  single  association.  For 
the  history  of  the  Emperor  Christophe's  fourteen  years  of 
power  is  one  unbroken  record  of  self-seeking,  corruption, 
and  cruelty. 

Yet  the  man  must  have  had  great  quahties  besides  those 
which    enabled    him    to    make    himself   autocrat  and  tyrant 


o 

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a. 


THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  BLACK  NAPOLEON.         191 

over  his  fellows.  He  was  curiously  different  from  the  mass 
of  his  race,  who  love  idleness,  who  do  not  seem  to  heed 
squalor,  and  whose  liking  for  gaudy  personal  adornment 
is  grotesquely  devoid  of  all  sense  of  congruity ;  whereas 
Christophe's  representative  in  England  told,  not  only  of 
extensive  public  works,  ravines  filled  up,  mountains  levelled, 
and  public  roads  laid  out,  but  also  of  the  inlaid  work  and 
rare  tapestry  with  which  the  Emperor's  apartments  were 
embellished. 

Leaving  Sans-Souci  we  began  the  climb  upwards.  I  was 
accompanied,  not  only  by  my  own  guide.  Petit  Col,  but 
by  the  military  escort  provided  for  me  through  the  agency 
of  the  General.  This  escort  consisted  of  one  small  soldier 
armed  with  a  club. 

Outside  the  village  we  met  a  murderer  being  taken  to 
prison  by  one  of  the  country  police,  who  was,  of  course, 
also  a  soldier.  '  The  prisoner  was  pinioned  by  a  rope  tied 
tightly  round  his  upper-arms,  and  his  captor  drove  him 
along  with  vigour.  The  poor  wretch  was  nearly  naked, 
and  miserably  thin.  He  had  been  wounded  in  the  face, 
and  a  few  broken  teeth  showed  under  his  swollen  lips.  I 
gave  cigars  to  each  of  the  men,  but  I  have  no  doubt  that 
the  soldier  who  was  armed  with  a  rusty  modern  revolver 
with  a  handle  of  mother-of-pearl,   smoked  both. 

After  a  long  rough  climb  through  the  ever-thickening 
forest,  we  reached  the  region  of  the  clouds.     A  hail  rang 


192  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

down  upon  us  from  the  thicket  of  trees  overhead,  and  a 
six-foot  negro,  armed  with  a  machette,  dropped  down  from 
the  heights  above  the  track.  His  clothing  was  not  in 
keeping  with  the  bitter  cold.  It  consisted  of  the  remains 
of  a  pair  of  trousers,  of  which  the  thorns  had  had  their  will, 
hanging  in  tatters  about  his  thighs,  while  a  piece  of  blue 
shirting,  adjusted  for  wear  by  holes  for  head  and  arms, 
completed  his  costume.  This  was  the  chief  warder  of  the 
Black  Napoleon's  great  citadel. 

He  and  a  companion,  similarly  armed  and  yet  more 
sparsely  clad,  now  led  the  way.  All  trace  of  a  path  was 
gone,  and  to  reach  the  Citadel,  which  full  in  view,  towered 
starkly  up  above  us,  grim  and  ruinous  and  red-stained  with 
lichen  and  overgrowth — it  was  necessary  to  cut  out  a  track 
through  the  close  mesh  of  underbush  and  creepers. 

Yet,  if  report  speaks  truly,  Christophe  was  wont  in  his 
own  day  to  drive  up  to  his  fortress  in  the  mountains.  The 
warder  guided  us  by  devious  turns  and  with  many  delays, 
while  he  cleared  away  the  encroaching  vanguards  of  the 
forest,  until  at  length  at  the  outer  bastions  of  the  fort  the 
trees  stopped  short.  From  under  their  shelter  we  plunged 
out  into  a  blinding,  hurtling  cloud  of  rain,  and  waited, 
chilled  to  the  bone,  until  the  sense  of  sight  should  be 
vouchsafed  to  us  again. 

The  guards  of  the  Citadel,  inadequately  provided  in 
every  way  as  they  are,  would  have  a  poor  time  of  it  were 


THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  BLACK  NAPOLEON.         193 

it  not  for  the  fact  that  the  Government,  jealous  of  the 
discovery  of  buried  treasure,  changes  the  men  every  month. 

After  a  time  the  rain  thinned,  I  urged  my  horse  to 
frantic  effort,  and  shortly  we  gained  the  comparative  shelter 
of  the  guard-house.  A  log  to  sit  upon,  a  mass  of  fluffy, 
flaky  wood-ash,  eloquent  of  a  dead  fire,  and  a  broken  tin 
roof,  supported  on  posts,  but  wall-less  as  usual,  which 
merely  served  to  increase  the  chill  of  wind  and  cloud 
that  shot  and  drove  under  it  as  through  a  funnel,  made 
up  the  sum  of  barrack  accommodation  furnished  by  the 
Republican   Government  for  its  servants. 

Personally  I  found  that  khaki,  though  all  very  well  down 
below  in  the  ports  and  on  the  plains,  was  not  the  ideal 
material  for  facing  this  fierce  weather.  While  we  waited  on 
the  pleasure  of  the  storm,  the  wild  warder  had  plucked  an 
orange  from  a  tree  hard  by,  and  was  peeling  it  with  his 
machette.  I  remember  I  could  hardly  see  what  it  was 
when  first  he  cut  into  it,  and  yet,  before  the  coil  of  peel 
fell  to  the  ground,  the  overhanging  cloud  had  flicked  away 
its  tail  and  the  mountain  summit  was  bathed  in  yellow, 
opulent  sunshine. 

And  then  came  repayment  to  the  fullest. 

The  whole  green  place  laughed  with  a  thousand  dew-lit 
mouths.  The  trees  dripped  moisture  and  exquisite  shades 
of  colour  from  their  low-hanging  branches.  Nature  breathed 
warm    in    your   face.     You  seemed  to  see  her,  savage  and 


194  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

beautiful,  flinging  her  unchecked  arms  about  the  great 
fortress  as  if  to  drag  it  down  from  its  place  of  pride. 
Involuntarily  I  glanced  up  at  the  grim,  walls,  draped  in 
their  torn  garment  of  orange-red  mosses.  Signs  of  decay 
and  time  show  clearly  enough  upon  them,  yet  they  stand 
erect  against  the  pale  blue  sky-line  in  impressive  bulk. 
And  then  came  that  other  contrast  between  the  wild 
figures  of  the  two  warders  and  their  great  empty  ward  of 
solid  stone  and  brick  and  masonry.  They  choose  to  live 
in  their  sordid  dwelling-place,  puny  and  tumble-down  as  it 
is,  by  force  of  race  preferring  it  to  the  enormous  ruin.  Of 
that  they  were — afraid  ! 

So  it  was ;  they  were  terribly  afraid.  Gingerly  they 
opened  the  huge,  nail-rusted,  iron-bound  door,  pausing 
hang-footed  on  the  vast  threshold.  For  here  ghosts  move, 
they  say,  with  shrill  pipe  through  the  blackness. 

I  gave  the  order  to  move  forward. 

But  they  held  back.     Something  seemed  to  trouble  them. 

The  four  negroes  gathered  themselves  into  a  little  knot 
and  gabbled  together.  Then  one  advanced  and  pushed 
back  the  creaking  door.  Old  smells  came  out  to  meet  us, 
and  noises  like  giants  laughing.  It  was  only  a  landslip 
far  away  in  the  bowels  of  the  mountain. 

Well,  we  entered.  I  took  three  steps  forward  and  a 
hand  plucked  me  back. 

I  struck  a  match.  A  mouth  of  blackness  gaped  at  my  feet. 


194  WHERE  T^T  \ri- 


THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  BLACK  NAPOLEON.         195 

"Deep,    deep  I      You    dead    if    you    walk    there  1" 

After  which   I  moved  hang-footed  too. 

The  great  door  of  the  ruin  closed  between  us  and  the 
sunlight,  and  we  were  in  the  dark  interior  of  the  huge  old 
citadel  on  Mont  La  Ferriere.  Long  deserted  by  man,  and 
left  to  natural  decay,  its  mighty  structure  shaken  to  danger- 
point  by  the  violent  earthquake  of  1842,  the  Citadel  is 
precisely  the  place  where  one  prefers  to  walk  by  sight. 

We  groped  our  way  up  a  flight  of  steps,  and  presently 
reached  daylight  again.  We  found  ourselves  in  a  long 
gallery,  lit  by  narrow  embrasures,  each  guarded  by  an 
ancient  black-snouted  cannon.  There  were  nineteen  of  them, 
nineteen  out  of  an  aggregate  of  three  hundred  in  the 
whole  fort.  Behind  the  cannon  and  all  about  the  gallery 
were  rolled  and  piled  the  rusty  balls  they  were  never 
destined  to  send  forth.  The  flooring,  as  you  moved  over 
it,  quivered  like  the  bed  of  a  snipe-marsh,  and  the  place 
reeked  of  old  wet  smells. 

Outside  you  could  see  the  world  alive  and  hot  with 
glowing  sunshine ;  here  nothing  stirred  save  the  lizard 
startled  from  its  bask.  Of  the  long  row  of  cannon  some 
were  of  brass,  and  marked  "  Georgius  IV.  Rex,"  and  some 
were  strangely  bearded  with  shining  stalactites  of  pallid 
white,  grovv'n  from  the  endless  drippings  of  the  roof.  A 
little  further  on  the  floor  did  not  look  like  bearing  a  heavy 
weight,    so    the    lighter  negroes  went  on  alone  like  prying 


196  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

children,  until  ten  yards  ahead  the  rotten  wood  creaked 
and  gave  ominously,  and  they  came  scuttling  back. 

From  the  gallery  we  passed  out  into  an  open  courtyard 
and  the  welcome  warmth  of  the  sun.  Here,  about  the 
tomb  of  dead  Christophe,  the  jungle,  fought  back  and 
checked  by  the  outer  walls,  has  undermined  them  and 
broken  out  into  fresh  riot.  Between  the  stems  of  the  young 
tamarinds  and  through  Guinea-grass  head-high  and  higher, 
we  pushed  our  way  until  we  reached  the  resting-place, 
pink  and  age-stained,  of  the  most  dominant  black  in  history, 
the  negro  who  reproached  Napoleon  for  surviving  defeat, 
and  who,  true  to  his  convictions,  in  the  supreme  moment 
chose  death.  In  front  of  the  tomb,  under  the  covering  slab, 
a  hole  had  been  broken  through  the  masonry;  inside  it 
looked  like  a  rabbit-earth  where  dogs  had  been  scratching. 
Close  over  it  from  an  orange  tree  hung  fruit  in  ripe 
golden  clusters. 

Petit  Col,  the  guide,  stooped  down  and  burrowed  in  the 
opening,  and  drew  forth  something  yellowed,  curved,  and 
furred, — a  human  rib. 

"Take  it — Christophe,"  he  said  briefly,  and  diving  again, 
plucked  out  what  seemed  to  be  a  finger-bone.  I  declined 
the  souvenir.  It  was  a  little  too  grisly.  But  the  tall  warder 
had  no  such  scruples.  He  wrapped  it  in  what  served  him 
for  a  shirt,  for  it  was  saleable.  In  the  loneliness  of  the 
stark  interior  he  would,  I  think,  have  shrunk  from  the  act, 


I 


THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  BLACK  NAPOLEON.         197 

but  here  he  had  company  and  the  sunHght  to  stiffen  his 
courage. 

We  pkuiged  again  into  the  jungle  of  Guinea-grass,  and 
the  men  cut  a  path  to  some  broken  steps ;  then,  after 
passing  through  one  more  dark  passage,  we  emerged  upon 
the  battlements.  They  are  flat  and  wide  enough  for  a 
carriage  to  drive  along.  From  them  one  gains  some  notion 
of  the  vast  thickness  of  the  walls,  fifteen  to  twenty  feet  of 
solid  stone-work.  Below,  the  whole  plain  spread  out  in 
gigantic  bars  of  colour.  The  foreground  of  deep  potato- 
green,  dotted  with  huts  small  and  black,  like  ranked  dominoes, 
the  distances  fading  into  smoky  grey,  and  far  to  the  left 
the  sea  in  a  band  of  gleaming  blue  underscored  the  horizon. 

It  is  not  until  you  look  suddenly  straight  downwards 
that  you  lealise  you  are  two  thousand  feet  sheer  above 
the  plain.  Two  thousand  feet — it  does  not  seem  very 
much  in  print,  but  when  the  eye  follows  the  clean  drop  of 
grey  wall  and  cliff  to  dim  depths  below,  you  become  aware 
that  the  words  have  a  pregnant  meaning.  A  red  mo.ss 
creeps  like  old  blood-stains  about  the  stones.  Here  a  few 
inches  under  the  edge  each  minute  feather  is  distinctly 
visible,  a  little  further  down  you  have  a  wide-spread  blur, 
lower,  lower,  and  lower,  till  the  distance  grows  brown  and 
your  head  reels,  for  at  last  the  field  of  view  comes  up  to 
you  with  a  wavering  sea-floor  glimmer  through  the  fathoms 
of  air. 


1 98  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

Old  blood-stained  walls  in  fact,  are  these  of  Christophe's 
Citadel.  From  the  battlements  men  have  leaped  into 
space  at  his  order,  or  been  flung  screaming  out  into  the 
shuddering  emptiness.  The  stories  of  his  cruelty  are  endless. 
You  wonder  why  the  people  submitted  to  tyranny  they 
could  have  shaken  oft",  until  you  recollect  that  the  will  of 
a  strong  man  usually  holds  the  key  to  any  situation. 

A  stone  dislodged  under  the  hand  tumbled  over  the  edge, 
and  we  hung  breathless  to  hear  it  strike  bottom.  After 
we  had  ceased  to  listen  an  echo  rose  faintly  upwards  and 
surprised  the  ear.  In  due  time  we  went  back  to  the 
massive  chill  and  silence  of  the  ruin.  Through  the  King's 
chamber,  the  Queen's  chamber,  and  the  dining-hall,  a 
lofty,  round,  be-windowed  place.  While  we  loitered  there, 
the  sun  went  out  as  before.  Billowing,  smoky  cloud- 
wreaths  came  vomiting  in  through  the  blank  windows, 
and  threw  us  into  a  sudden  twilight.  It  occurred  to  the 
wild  warder  to  choose  this  juncture  as  a  fitting  moment 
to  tell  me  something  of  the  habits  of  the  local  ghosts. 

"  A  ghost,  if  he  can  hurt  you,  looks  at  you  and  you 
die,"  he  muttered;  "the  first  time  he  comes  he  looks  only 
at  his  feet,  and  the  second  time  he  is  looking  down,  down 
at  his  feet;  the  third  time  he  looks  at  you" — he  flung  up 
his  two  large-jointed  hands  with  a  gesture  that  depicted 
sudden  death,  and  left  very  little  to  the  imagination. 

When,    after    some    minutes,    the    cloud    rolled    off.    Petit 


THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  BLACK  NAPOLEON.         igg 

Col  looked  up.  "There  is  nothing  more  to  see,"  he 
said. 

But  I  explained  that  the  Emperor  Christophe  was  not 
the  man  to  leave  out  those  old-time  necessities,  dungeons; 
and  those  all-time  necessities,  wells,  from  any  building  with 
which  he  had  to  do. 

I  was  not  disappointed  in  finding  the  Citadel  dungeons 
quite  up  to  the  quality  of  their  best  European  prototypes. 
The  bottle-necked  variety  appears  to  have  appealed  especi- 
ally to  Christophe's  practical  mind.  He  had  constructed 
four  of  them  in  a  row ;  each  one  deeper  than  the  last.  A 
prisoner  thrust  through  the  throat  of  the  first  would  fall, 
say,  twenty  feet ;  in  the  next  the  drop  was  deeper ;  the 
third  was  deeper  still.  In  the  last  the  victim  plunged  into 
the  bottomless  blackness  of  the  mountain's  heart. 

There  were  many  other  dungeons,  too,  so  safe,  so  chill, 
and  so  remote,  a  man  might  shriek  himself  to  death  within 
a  few  yards  of  sunshine  and  orange  trees  and  flowers,  and 
none  know  save  God  and  the  stone  walls.  There  can  be 
no  manner  of  doubt  that  many  so  perished — men,  women, 
and  children,  for  Christophe's  mercy  was  not. 

I  think  the  Black  Emperor  must  have  looked  forward 
to  a  day  when  he  would  have  to  defend  himself  from  his 
foes.  The  well  he  had  constructed  was  deep  and  clear 
and  freezing-cold,  and  fed  by  an  inexhaustible  spring.  La 
Ferriere  was  his  Tower  of  Babel ;  he  built  it  to  save  him- 


200  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

self  from  the  incoming  flood  of  revolt  which  he  feared ; 
built  it  at  an  incredible  waste  of  life  and  labour,  and  after 
all  it  never  answered  the  purpose  of  its  being. 

It  is  magnificent.  The  price  paid  for  it  was  thirty  thou- 
sand lives. 

To-day  it  is  a  cloud-hung  ruin.  The  lizard  keeps  its 
gates,   and  the  wind  is  alone  in  its  vast  emptinesses. 

A  ruin  has  always  stamped  upon  it  the  traces  of  some 
human  passion.  This  frowning  helmet  of  La  Ferriere  bears 
the  sign  manual  of  the  ferocity  and  merciless  vigour  of 
Christophe. 

On  the  battlements  you  find  yourself,  as  it  were,  on  the 
roof  of  the  world,  looking  upon  the  other  side  of  the 
cloud-rack.  One  reaches  it  by  a  faint  track  curling  up  the 
mountain  side,  and  in  three  hours  you  pass  from  the  sun- 
dried  breathless  plain  below  to  a  region  of  wind,  grey-black 
mists,  and  aching  cold.  It  towers  upon  the  last  and  highest 
precipice  like  some  sinister  monster  of  the  elder  world 
ready  to  launch  itself  forth  upon  the  spreading  lands  below. 

Seen  from  afar  the  Citadel  reminds  one  of  a  Chitrali 
fort,  one  flat  step  of  masonry  above  another,  but  nearer  at 
hand  it  resolves  itself  into  its  true  bold  and  menacing  out- 
lines. The  conception  of  placing  a  fortress  of  such  immense 
strength  and  size  in  such  a  position  could  only  have  come 
to  a  ruler  who  did  not  count  cost  in  lives  and  labour. 
But  the  black  Emperor  was  a  man  who  knew  his  own  mind 


Ai 


THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  BLACK  NAPOLEON.         203 

and  understood  thoroughly  the  gentle  art  of  tearing  down 
the  barriers  of  laziness  behind  which  the  negro  entrenches 
himself  at  all  times. 

The  materials  for  the  whole  huge  pile  of  building,  and 
the  three  hundred  pieces  of  ordnance  with  which  it  was 
fortified,  were  dragged  up  those  steep  mountain  scarps  and 
clififsides  by  human  hands.  Christophe  employed  the  troops 
mercilessly  in  this  labour,  seconding  them  by  levies  of 
peasants  raised  as  required.  These  poor  wretches  had  no 
pay  and  no  food ;  they  lived  as  they  could,  while  their 
terrible  master  forced  them  on  to  a  fever  of  toil  by  methods 
which  left  little  chance  of  resistance. 

Neither  sex  nor  age  was  spared ;  the  royal  works  had 
to  be  carried  on  in  spite  of  exhaustion  or  death.  Whips 
of  cowskin,  mercilessly  applied  by  the  ofificers  in  command, 
drew  forth  almost  incredible  reserves  of  energy.  The  mortal- 
ity was  frightful,  but  Christophe  had  the  whole  of  the 
populous  north  to  draw  upon,  and  he  used  up  human  lives 
unsparingly. 

It  took  a  whole  regiment  a  whole  day  to  drag  up  a 
32-pounder.  On  another  occasion  the  Emperor  watched  a 
long  line  of  a  hundred  men  hauling  a  cannon  upwards  to 
its  mountain  resting-place.  Now  and  then  they  paused  in 
their  labour,  and  these  frequent  stoppages  annoyed  Chris- 
tophe ;  he  sent  to  ask  the  why  and  wherefore.  The  labourers 
returned    for    answer   that  the  gun  was  over  much   for  the 


204  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

strength  of  a  hundred  men,  and  prayed  that  another  hundred 
men  might  be  provided  to  help  them. 

Christophe  ordered  them  before  him  and  talked  softly 
with  them,  and  at  length  told  them  to  fall  in  and  number 
off.  He  then  directed  every  fourth  man  to  fall  out,  and, 
calling  up  his  guards,  had  them  shot.  When  it  was  over, 
he  informed  the  remaining  seventy-five  that  he  was  but 
half-way  through  his  lunch,  and  he  would  consider  it  a 
favour  if  they  would  run  the  gun  up  into  place  before  he 
had  finished. 

The  diminished  band  went  back  to  work,  but  by  the 
time  Christophe's  meal  was  over  the  cannon  had  made  but 
little  progress  up  the  mountain  side.  When  he  arrived  on 
the  scene  the  seventy-five  bore  witness  with  one  voice  that 
the  thing  he  required  was,  for  so  small  a  number,  impossible. 

Christophe  laughed.  "So  it  seems,"  he  said,  "but  I 
have  a  remedy.     Fall  in." 

They  fell  in,  and  numbered  off  as  before. 

"Every    third  man  fall  out.     Guards,  shoot  these  men." 

The  volley  had  scarcely  died  away  and  the  last  limb 
ceased  to  quiver,  when  Christophe  gave  his  ultimatum. 

"Now,"  he  said  to  the  frightened  residue,  "I  will  require 
every  second  man  to  fall  out  next  time.  The  gun  was 
too  heavy  for  a  hundred  men,  surely  fifty  will  find  it  light." 

They  did.  At  any  rate,  they  towed  it  up  to  the  summit 
of   La  Ferriere,  and  in  its  appointed  casemate  it  probably 


THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  BLACK  NAPOLEON.         205 

stands  to  this  day.  By  such  means  the  Citadel  came  to 
be  the  wonderful  achievement  it  is. 

On  those  towering  heights  it  was  painfully  laid,  stone 
on  stone,  by  men  and  women  driven  to  superhuman  effort 
by  the  fear  of  unheard-of  punishments.  For  Christophe 
was  of  an  original  turn  of  mind,  and  an  epicure  in  torture. 
A  man  does  not,  I  take  it,  know  how  he  can  work  until 
he  has  real  fear  dogging  him. 

Christophe's  agent  in  England  (a  prince,  by  the  way, 
created  under  the  new  empire)  boasted  of  his  master's 
public  works,  "ravines  filled  up"  and  the  like.  He  did 
not  add  the  modus  operandi;  which  was  simple.  If  Chris- 
tophe, in  driving,  came  to  a  hollow  place  he  caused  a  drum 
to  be  beaten.  All  within  hearing  were  compelled  to  come 
to  the  spot  on  pain  of  death.  The  Emperor  would  point 
to  the  offending  hole  or  valley  — it  mattered  little  which  it 
was — and  remarked  that  he  would  pass  by  that  way  again 
at  such  a  time.  That  was  all.  When  he  returned,  if  the 
work  did  not  suit  his  ideas  or  had  not  been  completed, 
the  drum  sounded  again,  and  on  the  people  assembling 
he  would  choose  out  a  casual  half-dozen  and  have  them 
shot  then  and  there. 

There  seems  to  have  been  nothing  to  appeal  to  in  this 
man's  nature.  Bravery,  humility,  all  alike  failed  to  touch 
him.  He  had  no  bowels  of  mercy.  He  was  one  day  on 
the    battlements  with  a  youth,  who,  perhaps  presuming  on 


2o6  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

past    favours,    in    some  manner  displeased  him.     The  drop 
from  those  sheer  waUs  is   2,000ft.  to  the  plain  below. 

"You  are,  of  course,  about  to  die,"  said  Christophe, 
"  but  I  will  be  kind  to  you.  You  shall  have  a  choice  of 
deaths.  Either  you  throw  yourself  over  here  or  the  soldiers 
shall  shoot  you." 

The  young  man  chose  to  fling  himself  into  space.  But 
by  a  miracle  he  fell  amongst  some  trees  or  bushes  on  the 
cliff-side,  and  so  escaped  with  a  broken  arm.  He  gathered 
himself  up  somehow,  and  presented  himself  again  before 
the  Emperor. 

"Your  bidding  has  been  done,  sire,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  it  has,"  remarked  Christophe,  "and  I  am  very 
much  interested  to  find  that  you  survive.  Oblige  me  by 
trying  if  you   can  do  it  again!" 

These  are  the  stories  which  cling  round  the  name  of 
Christophe.  He  was  not  a  Haytian  negro,  but  from  one 
of  the  English  islands  near.  For  this  reason,  perhaps,  one 
takes  an  unwholesome  pride  in  the  man,  as  possessed  of  a 
rare  character  and  indomitable  resolution,  much  in  the  same 
way  as  we  are  proud  of  the  great  pirate,  Captain  Kidd, 
another  gentleman  who  had  to  do  with  Hayti,  for  his 
treasure  is  said  to  be  hidden  in  the  neighbouring  island  of 
Tortuga,  which  lies  close  to  the  coast  and  belongs  to  the 
Republic. 

The   Black    Napoleon  was  a  man  of  rapid  rise.     He  en- 


THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  BLACK  NAPOLEON.        207 

tered  the  army,  did  some  service  in  a  tumult  of  revolution, 
then  contrived  a  coup-d'etat,  and  he  was  master  of  the 
situation.  By  these  few  steps  he  raised  himself  to  the 
head  of  events,  and  at  once  created  an  Empire  out  of  the 
Northern  Provinces. 

Unlike  the  majority  of  his  race,  he  possessed  many  of 
the  qualities  of  a  born  ruler.  He  made  himself  immortal 
by  his  masterful  vigour,  which  on  the  one  side,  it  is  true, 
degenerated  into  callous  brutality,  but  on  the  other  rose 
to  that  energising  force  of  character  that  is  said  to  have 
initiated  a  spirit  of  enterprise  and  industry  in  the  north — 
a  spirit  that  up  to  the  present  day  differentiates  his  old 
kingdom  from  the  rest  of  the  Black  Republic.  On  the 
whole,  it  can  hardly  be  denied  that  he  was  somewhat  of 
a  kingly  figure.  And  the  manner  of  his  death  was  in 
keeping  with  his  life. 

Towards  the  close  he  had  an  attack  of  paralysis,  and  as 
soon  as  he  recovered  sufficiently  to  give  orders  he  had 
himself  placed  in  a  bath  of  rum  and  pepper,  a  remedy 
that  somewhat  restored  him.  Immediately  after  a  revolution 
broke  out  against  him  at  Cap  Haytien,  provoked  by  his 
merciless  exactions  of  labour  from  the  people.  From  the 
belvedere  of  his  Palace  of  Sans-Souci  he  watched  the  rebels 
burning  his  fields  of  cane;  he  sent  for  his  body-guard,  and, 
as  they  defiled  before  him,  he  gave  each  man  a  dollar,  and 
bade    them    go    and    fight  against  the  rebels.     Later,  news 


2o8  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

was  brought  that  the  guard  had  deserted,  and  gone  over 
to  the  enemy.  He  must  have  felt  that  the  end  of  his 
power  was  come.  He  rose  and  bade  farewell  to  his  wife 
and  family,  and,  going  to  his  own  chamber,  blew  out  his 
brains. 

As  always  happens  in  such  cases,  the  servants  and  officers 
of  the  court  looted  the  palace,  but  his  wife  and  daughters 
managed  to  carry  away  his  dead  body  with  them  to  the 
Citadel  on  the  mountain  above.  At  times,  they  say,  a 
grim  shadow  rises  from  the  jungle  grown  tomb  and  wanders 
about  the  battlements,  overlooking  the  plains  that  were 
once  his  own. 

The  climate  of  the  Citadel  up  there  among  the  clouds 
is  full  of  rapid  and  bewildering  changes.  One  moment 
the  heat  is  tropical.  Then  you  see  far  away  a  cloud ;  it 
approaches,  rearing  up  into  the  zenith,  rushing  at  you  like 
a  regiment  of  cavalry  in  a  wide  swirl  of  black  dust.  The 
next  moment  it  is  belching  in  at  all  the  embrasures,  chilling 
you  to  the  bone,  and  the  climate  becomes  that  of  the 
outer  Hebrides,  During  these  sudden  invasions  the  place 
gives  you  the  concrete  representation  of  all  that  is  chaotic 
and  ruinous  and  abysmal. 

When  the  rain  and  the  mist  had  passed  over  we  went 
out  again  across  the  threshold.  The  sun  was  shining,  and 
over  the  vista  of  potato-green  plain  and  amethyst  sea  the 
cloud  was  gathering  up  its  ragged  skirts  in  flight. 


THE  CITADEL  OF  THE  BLACK  NAPOLEON.         209 

As  I  left  the  tall  warder  was  pessimistically  picking  over 
the  remnants  of  my  late  repast,  and  he  had  warmed  the 
fire  into  flickering  life.  Another  heavy-breasted  cloud  had 
invested  the  frowning  walls ;  beneath  their  shadow  the  men 
were  crouching  together  in  their  dreary  hut,  and  above 
them  the  dying  fortress  hung  hooded. 


14 


CHAPTER    XI. 

JUSTICE    AND    THE    STATUS    OF    THE    WHITE. 

WHERE    HE    IS   RULED    BY   THE    NEGRO. 

In  most  countries  where  they  put  forward  race  distinc- 
tions a  man  is  called  Englishman,  American,  German — by 
the  name  of  whatever  nation  may  claim  him.  But  in  Hayti 
the  point  of  complexion  carries  the  day,  and  estabhshes 
your  designation.  If  you  do  not  happen  to  be  of  the  reg- 
nant colour,  you  are  a  white,  a  blanc  —  \\\Q  Haytian  recog- 
nises no  minor  distinction  among  the  lighter-hued  foreigners. 
As  you  walk  about  the  streets  you  catch,  at  the  tags  and 
tails  of  sentences,  the  labial  " blajic,''  as  the  curious  or 
antagonist  negro  delivers  his  criticism  upon  you,  your  pro- 
bable station  in  life,  your  present  business  and  your  per- 
sonal charms.  For,  above  all  things,  the  negro  is  extra- 
ordinarily inquisitive. 


JUSTICE  AND  THE  STATUS  OF  THE  WHITE.        21  t 

Jealousy  of  the  foreigner  is  a  very  pronounced  trait, 
from  the  Government  down  to  the  wharf-side  loafer.  His 
immigration  is  discouraged  in  every  way.  He  may  be 
said  to  have  practically  no  rights ;  he  can  own  no  property 
in  land,  and  if  he  gets  a  concession  from  the  Government 
he  is  likely  to  find  himself,  sooner  or  later,  left  in  the  lurch. 

Yet  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  presence  of  the 
white  element,  small  as  it  is,  makes  for  good.  Remove  it, 
and  the  Republic  would  go  sliding  back  into  the  depths 
of  barbarism.  This  applies  more  especially  to  the  repre- 
sentatives of  foreign  Powers  accredited  to  the  island.  Time 
and  again  has  Hayti,  in  the  course  of  her  hundred  years 
of  independence,  owed  the  continuance  of  that  independ- 
ence to  the  kind  offices  of  these  gentlemen. 

Occasionally  she  flounders  diplomatically,  and  then  it  is 
that  the  white  man's  aid  must  be  called  in  to  adjust  a 
difificulty  beyond  the  powers  of  the  black.  A  schedule  of 
the  cases  where  the  diplomatic  representatives  of  foreign 
nations  have  saved  Hayti  from  the  wrath  and  reprisals  of 
some  insulted  Power  would  make  an  interesting  document, 
and,  to  those  who  are  not  behind  the  scenes,  a  surprisingly 
lengthy  one. 

P^or  all  this,  Haytian  gratitude  is  not.  Unless  the  quid 
pro  quo  be  down  in  black  and  white,  and,  moreover,  in- 
sisted upon,  it  quietly  drops  into  oblivion  and  no  more  is 
heard  of  it. 


212  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

Here  is  an  instance  when  the  diplomatic  corps  formed 
the  buffer  between  Haytian  maladroitness  and  foreign  re- 
sentment. The  6th  of  December,  1897,  was  a  day  to  be 
long  remembered  in  Port-au-Prince,  for  on  that  morning 
the  German  Government  sent  in  an  ultimatum.  It  is  un- 
necessary to  enter  at  length  into  the  origin  of  the  dispute, 
suffice  it  to  say  that  a  German  subject  had  been  imprison- 
ed, and  his  release,  on  the  intervention  of  his  Minister, 
refused.  In  the  end  the  man  was  set  at  liberty  through 
the  good  offices  of  the  American  representative.  But  Ger- 
many considered  herself  insulted.  The  Kaiser  sent  a  tele- 
gram, followed  up  by  two  gun-boats,  with  orders  to  receive 
the  indemnity  demanded,  and,  in  the  event  of  a  refusal  to 
pay,  they  were  instructed  to  shell  the  capital. 

Port-au-Prince  was  in  an  uproar.  The  inhabitants  fled 
to  the  hills,  the  families  of  many  leading  citizens  were  sent 
on  board  the  ships  that  happened  to  be  lying  in  the  har- 
bour. The  rougher  part  of  the  populace  boasted  that  on 
the  first  shot  fired  they  would  begin  a  massacre  of  every 
white  man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  town.  The  Cabinet 
met  at  the  palace  of  the  President  to  discuss  the  situation. 
Meantime  the  minutes  were  flying,  but  the  foreign  repre- 
sentatives procured  an  extension  of  the  time-limit  given  in 
the  German  ultimatum.  The  final  hour  fixed  upon  was 
one  o'clock,  on  the  stroke  of  which,  as  the  German  com- 
mander   was    careful   to    assure    them,  the  first  shell  would 


JUSTICE  AND  THE  STATUS  OF  THE  WHITE.       215 

be  dropped  upon  the  roof  of  the  palace  unless  a  white 
flag,  the  signal  of  compliance,  should  be  hoisted  there. 

The  Cabinet  were  on  the  horns  of  a  dilemma ;  they  did 
not  know  how  the  populace  would  take  surrender.  For 
the  Haytians  at  large  have  no  idea  of  their  position  in  the 
catalogue  of  the  nations,  being  fully  convinced  that  they 
could  engage  on  equal  terms  with  any  one  of  them.  With- 
out the  advice  and  mediation  of  the  foreign  delegates, 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  time-limit  would  have 
expired  and  that  Hayti  must  in  consequence  have  felt  the 
weight  of  Germany's  hand,  even  if  the  wild  anarchy  that 
would  inevitably  have  broken  out  had  not  marked  the  end 
of  her  century  of  independence. 

And  the  German  affair  is  only  one  of  many.  Thanks, 
then,  to  events  such  as  these,  while  he  is,  with  rare  excep- 
tions, disliked  and  distrusted,  the  average  foreigner  has 
earned  at  least  the  toleration  which  is  invariably  accorded 
to  usefulness.  In  this  connection  the  visit  of  the  German 
warships  had  one  good  effect.  It  brought  home  to  the 
Haytian  in  the  street,  the  knowledge  that  white  is  a  colour 
worthy  of  respect.  For  a  foreign  gun- boat  in  Port-au-Prince 
bay  is  worth  more  as  a  deterrent  than  a  navy  at  Port 
Royal.     The  black  man  must  see  to  understand. 

As  to  the  personal  safety  of  the  foreigner,  he  has  under 
the  present  regime  little  cause  for  complaint.  Of  course  it 
is    fatally   easy,  if  you  are  not  known,  to  get  into  trouble, 


2i6  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

and  once  in  you  will  find  it  an  uncommonly  hard  matter 
to  get  out  again. 

On  many  occasions  during  my  stay  in  Port-au-Prince  I 
crossed  the  Champ-de-Mars  late  at  night.  A  better  place 
to  rob  a  man  you  could  not  find  in  the  two  hemispheres. 
It  is  lonely,  it  is  dark,  its  lamps  are  broken,  it  is  honey- 
combed with  treacherous  holes  and  ditches,  whence  the 
bull-frogs  croak  ceaselessly.  It  would  not  be  wise  to  cross 
it  in  the  small  hours,  were  it  situated  in  Venezuela,  where 
the  early  pedestrian  is  apt  to  find  such  objects  as  unidenti- 
fied fingers  on  the  public  paths  —  three  were  found  in  Car- 
racas  not  a  month  ago — but  here  beyond  the  ubiquitous, 
cent-desiring  soldier,  you  are  never  molested.  At  least, 
that  was  my  experience. 

This  is  a  surprising  condition  of  affairs  when  you  con- 
sider the  state  of  Hayti.  It  is  another  of  those  violent 
contrasts  in  which  this  country  is  so  rich.  Her  people, 
whatever  may  be  their  other  faults,  have  not  that  knife-in- 
your-back  instinct  which  permeates  so  many  of  the  Spanish- 
American  Republics. 

And  now,  having  dealt  with  the  safety  of  the  white  man 
from  the  attacks  of  the  lawless,  let  us  see  how  he  is  likely 
to  fare  if  he  chances  to  be  attacked  by  the  law. 

The  blanc  is  not  infrequently  thrown  into  prison  on 
frivolous  charges,  and  when  one  takes  into  account  the 
chances   of  maltreatment  on  arrest,  and  the  horribly  insan- 


JUSTICE  AND  THE  STATUS  OF  THE  WHITE.       217 

itary  condition  of  the  prisons,  this  in  itself  constitutes  a 
grave  danger.  Further,  his  evidence  in  the  courts  does  not, 
under  any  circumstances,  hold  good  against  counter-evidence 
offered  by  a  Haytian.  Whatever  the  rights  of  the  case 
may  be,  it  is  a  foregone  conclusion  that  the  Juge  de  Paix 
will  decide  in  favour  of  his  own  countryman. 

Outside  the  Legations,  the  Consulates,  and  the  chief 
mercantile  houses,  the  white  man  in  Hayti  cannot  be  called 
a  particularly  fine  example  of  the  aristocracy  of  colour.  Five 
men  out  of  six  have  had  chameleon  careers,  and  have  been 
fired  at  last  by  the  rigour  of  stark  necessity  into  their 
present  berths.  The  greater  number  of  them  are,  of  course, 
Germans.  At  the  close  of  the  last  century  it  was  estimated 
that  the  white  population  of  Hayti  reckoned  46,000  souls; 
to-day  you  might  knock  off  the  last  two  ciphers. 

And  with  the  disappearance  of  the  white  colonists  pros- 
perity fled  from  the  land.  Government  policy,  as  has  been 
said,  is  directed  towards  keeping  out  the  foreigner.  The 
result  is  that  the  immense  natural  resources  of  the  country 
remain  entirely  undeveloped.  The  white  man  has  of  neces- 
sity to  be  very  circumspect  in  his  dealings  with  the  Haytian. 
He  lives  and  trades  in  the  Republic  under  protest,  as  it 
were,  against  a  regime  that  is  always  antagonistic,  and  ready 
to  hamper  his  efforts  whenever  opportunity  offers. 

As  far  as  the  towns  are  concerned,  then,  the  white  man, 
if  he  can  keep  clear  of  the  entanglements  of  the  law,  will 


2i8  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

not,  save  in  unusual  cases,  be  molested.  A  revolution,  of 
course,  alters  the  aspect  of  things,  promiscuous  shooting 
goes  on,  and  underlying  dislike  of  the  outlander  comes  to 
the  surface.  But  even  when  things  are  taking  their  normal 
course,  if  he  happens  to  be  unfortunate  enough  to  come 
within  the  grasp  of  the  law,  the  White,  under  the  present 
Government,  has  no  rights  the  Black  need  respect  save 
those  which  can  be  enforced  by  his  diplomatic  representative, 
which  means  by  the  brute  power  of  his  nation. 

In  all  the  principal  coast  towns  there  exists  a  little  nucleus 
of  white  men,  who  form  the  core  of  the  virile  part  of  the 
community,  and  who,  if  they  make  their  money  out  of  the 
country,  bring  much  into  it.  Their  daily  life  is  monotonous 
enough.  Take,  by  way  of  example,  the  routine  at  the 
Cape.  A  man  is  up  with  the  sun  or  before  it,  and  arrives 
at  his  office  early.  Breakfast  is  taken  at  noon,  after  which 
he  returns  to  work.  About  four  he  adjourns  as  one  man 
to  the  local  club,  and  there  he  stays  till  seven,  playing 
billiards  or  dominoes,  or  sitting  on  the  wooden  piazza  that 
overlooks  the  ragged  weed-grown  marsh.  After  that  he 
goes  home  to  dinner  and  bed.  And  to-morrow  he  travels 
the  same  old  round.     So  runs  life  for  the  foreigner  in  Hayti. 

If  you  are  a  white  man,  then  don't  go  to  law  in  Hayti. 
Bribery  is  not  unknown,  but  it  is  nearly  always  far  cheaper 
to  submit  to  injustice  than  to  try  conclusions  in  a  law 
court.     For  you  cannot  bribe  away,  even  if  you  wished  to, 


JUSTICE  AND  THE  Sl'ATUS  OF  THE  WHITE.       219 

the  self-evident  fact  of  race,  and  your  opponent  usually 
happens  to  be  of  the  ruling  colour. 

The  basis  of  the  law  is  the  Code  Napoleon,  modified  to 
Haytian  necessities,  and  altered  in  lesser  particulars  from 
time  to  time.  The  judicial  machinery  of  the  courts,  from 
the  Court  of  Cassation  downwards,  is  modelled  upon  the 
French  system.  The  judges  are  black,  for  any  admixture 
of  blood  is  regarded  with  strong  disfavour,  and  even  mulat- 
toes  are  rigorously  excluded  from  positions  and  authority. 
The  better  class  do  not  seek  the  office,  and  judges,  oddly 
enough,  are  rarely  drawn  from  the  grades  of  the  legal 
profession. 

The  President  has  the  right  of  nomination,  and  he  and 
his  party  put  forward  any  person  they  please,  for  a  judge's 
most  prominent  recommendation  is  his  usefulness  as  a  par- 
tisan or  supporter.  The  actual  salary  is  small,  but  the 
appointment  can  be  and  is  so  handled  as  to  prove  highly 
remunerative. 

It  is  a  fact  of  common  knowledge  that  cases  are  .syste- 
matically prejudged  ;  now  and  then  a  politician  intervenes 
quietly  for  purposes  of  his  own;  he  gives  a  hint  to  the 
bench,  and  the  verdict  is  arranged  before  the  litigants  set 
foot  in  court.  Curious  impediments  are  thrown  in  the  way 
of  justice,  and  grotesque  excuses  have  been  given  for  the 
non-fulfilment  of  ordinary  legal  forms. 

In    this    connection    a    story    may    be    told    which  has  a 


220  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

moral,  but  no  end.  In  a  certain  town  there  is  a  firm  whom 
we  will  call  Da  Costa  and  Co.  Some  years  ago  they  made 
an  arrangement  with  a  Haytian  to  buy  for  them  certain 
materials  required  in  their  business. 

To  carry  out  his  side  of  the  contract,  and  for  the  ex- 
press purpose  of  procuring  the  various  articles  in  demand, 
the  Haytian  went  to  Europe,  taking  with  him  a  large 
advance  of  some  thousands  from  the  company.  He  visited 
most  of  the  Continental  cities,  spending  a  long  interval  at 
the  Mecca  of  Haytians — Paris,  and  by  the  end  of  a  year 
or  so  returned  home  empty-handed.  He  had  no  money 
left,  nor  had  he  any  supplies  to  show. 

Da  Costa  and  Co  naturally  objected  to  the  complete 
disappearance  of  their  money,  and  took  the  matter  into 
court,  and  there  it  still  remains.  The  evidence  was  so  clear 
that  a  record  was  broken  and  judgment  given  for  the  plain- 
tiffs. But,  having  done  this,  the  judges  manifestly  thought 
they  had  done  enough.  They  had  given  a  verdict  in 
favour  of  a  firm  of  foreigners,  and  it  was  now  necessary 
to   remove  the  stain  of  so  doing  from  their  characters. 

The  course  they  adopted  was  of  a  simplicity  akin  to 
genius — they  refused  to  execute  the  judgment.  On  the 
occasion  of  Messrs.  Da  Costa's  last  appeal,  the  excuse  was 
beautifully  consistent  with  Haytian  traditions.  The  court 
(and  it  was  not  an  inferior  court,  quite  the  opposite)  replied 
that  they  had  at  the  moment  no  money  to  buy  the  neces- 


■*-     - 


JUSTICE  AND  THE  STATUS  OF  THE  WHITE.       221 

sary  stamped  paper  to  execute  the  judgment,  and  Messrs. 
Da  Costa  must  wait  until  they  had ! 

To  show  the  converse  side  of  the  shield  of  Republican 
justice — at  this  moment  there  is  more  than  one  foreigner 
in  gaol  for  the  crime  of  owing  a  dollar  or  some  similar 
small  sum  to  a  Haytian. 

Those  who  gain  their  cases  may  safely  be  divided  into 
three  classes.  First,  the  black,  whose  opponent  is  white, 
wholly  or  partially ;  secondly,  as  among  themselves,  the 
man  with  the  biggest  purse  and  pull ;  and,  lastly,  in  the 
lower  classes,  the  man  who  has  the  luck.  Occasionally 
extraneous  influences  are  brought  to  bear.  As  in  the  old 
Roman  days,  the  sword  thrown  into  the  balance  brings 
down  the  scales  of  justice  with  a  run. 

Recently  a  Haytian  merchant  sued  the  active  Chief  of 
Police  for  debt.  On  the  day  the  case  was  called  the  Chief 
of  Police  made  up  a  snug  little  escort  of  his  men,  and,  to 
give  due  weight  to  the  proceedings,  served  out  a  few 
rounds  of  ammunition,  and  marched  them  in  a  body  up 
to  the  court.  Three  black  judges  were  on  the  bench 
ready  to  try  the  case — two  of  them  forestalled  trouble  by 
recollecting  pressing  engagements  elsewhere,  and  the  third 
sought  cover.     The  case  was  adjourned  for  a  fortnight. 

On  the  day  fixed  for  the  second  hearing  the  Chief  of 
Police  played  trumps  again,  the  judges  departed  at  the 
double  and  there  was  no  quorum. 


222      •  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

Upon  this  the  Chief  Justice  wrote  to  the  defendant.  He 
begged  him  to  bear  in  mind  his  duties  as  a  citizen,  and 
to  present  himself  before  the  Civil  Tribune  in  a  costume 
and  manner  conforming  to  the  laws  of  his  country. 

For  answer,  upon  the  appointed  day  the  Chief  doubled 
his  escort,  dressed  himself  in  full  uniform,  served  out  some 
extra  boxes  of  ammunition  for  his  men  to  carry,  and  rode 
his  horse  into  the  court.  The  case  was  postponed,  and 
postponed  it  remains  at  the  hour  of  writing.  It  is  reported 
that  political  animus  was  here  the  wheel  within  the  wheel. 

In  criminal  cases  the  courts  move  slowly  about  their 
business.  The  law  of  habeas  corpus  is  a  dead  letter.  A 
man  may  lie  in  prison  awaiting  trial  for  no  small  period 
of  time.  There  is  to-day  a  prisoner  in  the  jail  at  Port-au- 
Prince.  He  has  been  there  for  many  years,  and  no  record 
of  his  offence  remains ;  the  why  and  the  wherefore  have 
been  long  forgotten.  Only  the  man  himself  is  extant,  still 
undergoing  the  punishment  of  his  lost  crime. 

There  is  in  the  constitution  a  law  abolishing  the  penalty 
of  death  for  political  misdemeanours,  but  it  was  consistently 
ignored  by  every  President,  without  exception,  who  has 
held  power  in  the  island,  until  General  Sam,  who  is  now 
at  the  head  of  the  Government,  came  into  office.  To  his 
credit  be  it  said  that  he  usually  sends  his  political  enemies 
to  prison  instead  of  shooting  them  out  of  hand  against  the 
crumbling  arsenal  wall,  after  the  immortal  principles  of  his 


JUSTICE  AND  THE  STATUS  OF  THE  WHITE.       223 

predecessors  Salomon  and  Hippolyte.  But  I  could  name  one 
gentleman  at  least  who,  if  he  succeeds  to  the  Presidential 
chair,  which  is  quite  on  the  cards,  will  revive  the  good 
old  customs  of  the  past. 

In  spite,  however,  of  the  very  general  corruption  and 
deliberate  miscarriage  of  justice,  the  Court  of  Cassation  has 
of  late  taken  up  an  attitude  which  approximates  more  nearly 
to  the  universal  idea  of  equity,  and  has  decided  some  cases 
upon  their  own  merits  and  not  upon  those  of  the  litigants. 

Judicial  procedure  is  in  certain  instances  not  untouched 
by  humour.  A  Haytian  owed  a  trader  twenty-eight  dollars. 
A  judgment  requiring  the  Haytian  to  pay  four  dollars  a 
week  into  court  was  given,  and  the  trader  agreed  to  send 
a  messenger  every  week  to  the  magistrate  for  the  money. 
In  due  time  he  sent  for  the  first  instalment,  and  was  informed 
that  the  Haytian  had  not  paid  up,  but  that  he  should  be 
thrown  into  prison  for  his  failure.- 

Three  weeks  passed  with  the  same  result.  One  morn- 
ing the  Haytian  came  to  the  trader's  store.  He  was,  he 
said,  a  poor  man,  much  married,  a  man  to  whom  there- 
fore expense  came.  What  good,  he  asked,  would  accrue 
to  the  trader  if  he,  the  poor  man,  was  thrown  into  prison? 
Let  the  trader  forgive  him  his  debt,  and  earn  thereby 
untold  rewards  in  a  future  state. 

After  some  talk  the  trader  gave  him  a  letter  of  remission, 
which  he  went  oft"  to  present  to  the  magistrate.     The  affair 


224  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

was  settled,  but  the  Haytian  was  struck  by  the  bad  grace 
with  which  the  magistrate  dismissed  him,  and  he  forthwith 
returned  to  the  trader  and  asked  him  if  he  had  received 
the  eight  dollars  already  paid  into  court.  The  trader  looked 
surprised,  and  said  he  had  received  nothing. 

"  Then,  since  you  have  remitted  the  debt,  that  eight  dollars 
is  mine,"  said  the  Haytian. 

Accordingly  he  went  off  to  the  court  to  present  his  claim. 
The  magistrate  at  once  committed  him  to  prison.  A  consul 
who  had  heard  the  story  asked  the  magistrate  what  the 
Haytian  was  sent  to  prison  for. 

"For  contempt  of  court,"  was  the  reply. 


CHAPTER    XII. 


THE   HAYTIAN   PRESS. 


If  I  were  condemned  to  write  down  the  names  of  all 
the  newspapers  of  Hayti,  past  and  present,  I  should  have 
to  spend  a  considerable  time  upon  the  task.  The  reason 
of  their  multiplicity  is  not  on  account  of  any  great  demand 
for  news  in  the  Black  Republic,  but  because  from  a  number 
of  causes  the  journals  of  the  daily  press  are  apt  to  be 
short-lived. 

Whenever  there  is  a  revolution  each  party,  each  powerful 
leader,  must  perforce  have  an  organ  through  which  he 
may  address  the  public  generally  and  the  inhabitants  of 
Port-au-Prince  in  particular.  So  each  political  commotion 
brings  in  its  train  a  crop  of  newspapers,  proclamations, 
pamphlets — call  them  what  you  will — whose  average  length 
of  hfe  is  limited  to  half-a-dozen  issues. 

Moreover,    a    paper    which   starts    its    career    in    print  as 

15 


226  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHLrE. 

"The  Evening  News  of  Hayti  "  may  pass  through  various 
re-incarnations;  so  that  when  "The  Evening  News"  happens 
to  be  suppressed  on  a  Saturday,  it  makes  its  reappearance 
on  Monday  under  the  alias  of  (say)  "The  Mirror  of  the 
World;"  after  being  once  more  put  down  it  turns  up 
shortly  as  "The  Thunderer  of  the  Republic." 

These  journals  have  a  humour  of  their  own  for  the 
European  reader.  They  are  conducted  by  Haytian  jour- 
nalists whose  styles  appear  to  lend  themselves  to  a  rather 
bombastic  tone,  and  whose  grasp  upon  foreign  affairs  is 
superlatively   French. 

Although  there  appears  to  be  some  competition  among 
the  newspapers,  circulation  is  counted  by  tens  instead  of 
by  thousands,  and  the  means  by  which  the  chief  Republican 
organs  exist  are  drawn  from  the  subsidies  granted  to  them 
by  the  State.  This  system  naturally  militates  against  a 
free  and  fearless  press.  In  any  case,  it  must  be  difficult 
to  preserve  freedom  of  utterance  when,  at  the  first  symptom 
of  independence,  the  enterprising  editor  is  dragged  off  to  prison. 
Ten  years  ago  the  Haytian  press  was  in  a  more  healthy 
condition  than  it  is  to-day.  At  that  time  grievances  were 
published,  brutal  arrests  condemned,  and  the  evils  of  the 
country,  even  cannibalism  and  snake-worship,  were  occasion- 
ally dealt  with.  The  greatest  newspaper  of  those  days  was 
run  by  the  Consul-General  of  the  rival  black  Republic  of 
Liberia. 


THE  HAYTIAN  PRESS.  227 

At  the  present  time  Port-au-Prince  possesses  two  papers, 
"  Le  Soir "  and  "  Le  Nouvelliste,"  whose  views  upon  local 
questions  are  absolutely  colourless.  In  form  they  are  like 
a  single  page  of  "The  St.  James's  Gazette,"  but  the  paper 
upon  which  they  appear  has  vast  margins.  Their  contents 
include  telegrams  from  P'rench  sources,  an  article  by  a 
leading  Haytian,  and  a  patchwork  of  utterly  unimportant 
local  news.  When  they  find  themselves  short  of  copy  they 
print  a  eulogy  of  the  President  of  Hayti,  or  of  the  editor 
of  the  paper. 

In  the  front  column  of  one  of  these  papers,  directly 
under  the  head  of  "  P'oreign  Telegrams,"  appeared  the 
following  interesting  announcement : 

"  M.  Salmon  has  removed  for  M.  C.  Rigaud  four  corns 
and  an  ingrowing  nail  without  pain  or  effusion  of  blood. 
He  was  very  satisfied  with  the  manner  in  which  Pedicure 
Salmon  operated.  To-morrow  will  be  the  turn  of  D.  Nar- 
cisse  and  on  PMday  that  of  the  P^ditor  of  this  paper." — 
"  Le  Peuple." 

Another  gem  is  the  following:  — 

"Extraordinary  Fact.  — One  of  the  sons  of  Dr.  Maitre 
Bonaventure,  the  Port  doctor,  was  a  victim  last  night  of 
an  attempted  assassination  accomplished  under  circumstances 
which  have  yet  to  be  explained.  Being  in  his  bed  alone 
in  the  house,  and  all  the  means  of  ingress  absolutely  closed, 
he    received    several    blows    from    a    poignard  1     We    have 


228  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

ourselves  heard  certain  persons  seriously  lay  this  mysteri- 
ous crime  to  the  charge  of  Satan !  We  believe  that  Justice 
has  accepted  this  interpretation  with  a  wise  reserve.  We 
await  further  revelations  with  expectation." — "La  Revue 
Expres." 

The  price  of  newspapers  ranges  from  five  centimes  to 
half  a  dollar.  I  understand  that  their  circulation  occasion- 
ally attains  four  figures,  but  I  believe  three  would  be 
nearer  the  mark. 

During  the  earlier  part  of  the  Boer  War  I  suffered  con- 
siderably at  the  hands  of  the  Haytian  press.  Their  render- 
ing of  events,  being  drawn  from  the  French  point  of  view, 
was  alarmist. 

Under  date  13th  December,  General  "Forestier"  includes 
in  his  despatch  from  the  Cape  the  following  news  of  General 
Methuen : — "  The  Boers  being  perfectly  entrenched  this 
morning  in  their  position,  I  retired  in  good  order,  and  up 
to  the  present  /  am  safe.'' 

We  have  heard  a  great  deal  latel}'  of  the  French  press 
campaign  against  us.  Hayti  lies,  as  everyone  knows,  4,000 
miles  distant  from  France,  yet  one  of  these  Haytian  papers, 
which  I  have  described  above,  published  an  article  last 
December,  some  extracts  from  which  are  worth  quoting. 

Napoleon,  risen  from  his  tomb  at  the  Invalides,  addresses 
his  old  soldiers :  "  The  English,  the  eternal  enemy  who 
conquered    you — for    in  conquering  me  she  conquered  you 


THE  HAYTIAN  PRESS.  229 

—  the  English  of  Trafalgar  and  of  Waterloo,  recoil  before 
the  energy  of  a  little  people  of  Africa.  The  mercenaries 
of  the  Old  Queen  draw  back,  and  are  broken ;  the  officers 
fall  to  save  the  honour  of  the  flag  that  these  mercenaries 
have  not  the  heart  to  defend  ;  Albion  fights  no  longer  ,  .  . 
Albion  dies  .  .  .  And  thou,  France,  thou  wilt  look  on  and 
thou  wilt  not  budge ! 

"  What  then  is  the  blood  that  flows  in  thy  veins  ?  Hast 
thou  forgotten  that  I  fought  for  twenty  years  to  deliver 
thee  from  her  commercial  yoke  ?  That  I  conquered  at  Jena, 
at  Austerlitz,  at  Eylau,  to  chastise,  not  the  Prussian,  not 
the  Russian,  not  the  Austrian,  but  to  destroy  the  English? 
Hast  thou  forgotten  that  thy  last  glory,  the  purest  of  all, 
that  which  lit  up  the  end  of  the  century  with  a  ray  of 
greatness  and  hope,  the  glory  of  Marchand  and  of  his  band 
of  heroes,  has  been  torn  from  thee  by  this  race  of  shop- 
keepers ? 

"And  if  thou  hast  not  forgotten  these  sorrows,  why 
dost  thou  delay  to  avenge  them  ? 

"  Already  at  Boulogne  I  had  gathered  an  army.  .  .  . 
Under  their  eyes,  notwithstanding  their  cruisers,  I  was 
preparing  to  invade  them.  In  a  few  days  I  should  have 
thrown  100,000  men  into  their  island.  To-day  20,000 
would  suffice  to  muzzle  them.  Their  vessels  are  at  the  end 
of  the  earth ;  thine  are  here. 

"  They    will    escort    thy    transports,    which,    in    less  than 


230  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

twenty-four  hours,  will  disembark  on  this  accursed  island 
the  sons  of  my  old  Grenadiers !  France,  to  arms !  It  is 
not  to  a  conquest  that  I  invite  you,  it  is  to  give  a  vital 
blow  to  these  insolents !  Republic,  remember  Hoche ! 
France,  bethink  thee  of  Bonaparte  1 "  On  coming  to  an 
end  of  these  inspired  words,  the  shade  disappeared. 

At  times  the  editors  of  the  Haytian  papers  have  singular 
difficulties  to  contend  with.  One  organ  announced  its 
desire  to  buy  new  forms,  but  said  it  must  postpone  the 
purchase  until  the  newsagents  who  retailed  its  copies  paid 
some  of  their  debts  on  account. 

To  wind  up,  I  will  give  you  some  war  correspondence 
in  the  Haytian  style.  The  following  were  produced  during 
the  Dominican  War  or  one  or  other  of  the  many  revolu- 
tions : — 

"The  two  armies  met;  after  a  terrible  battle  lasting 
two  hours,  which  cost  the  life  of  a  man,  our  troops  carried 
the  enemy's  camp  by  assault." 

Here  again:  — 

"To-day,  rising  to  the  height  of  the  sublime  sentiment 
of  independence,  the  citizens  of  Valliere  shouted  the  cry 
of  indissoluble  fraternity !  The  enemy  launched  against 
us  the  whole  of  their  forces ;  the  lesson  has  been  a  terrible 
one;  three  drums,  a  trumpet,  and  various  other  objects 
remained  in  the  hands  of  the  troops  of  the  Government. 
Honour  to  the  Generals  A — ,  B — ,  C  — ,  D  — ,   E— ,   &c." 


THE  HAYTIAN  PRESS.  231 

And  here  is  an  address  from  a  General  to  his  soldiers : — 

"Soldiers! — I  promised  to  conduct  you  to  victory,  and 
your  first  enterprises  have  been  fruitful  1  Put  your  trust 
then  in  the  wisdom  and  the  experience  with  which  I  direct 
your  steps.  Soon,  the  God  of  Armies  blessing  our  arms, 
complete  triumph  will  crown  our  efforts,  for  we  defend  a 
just  cause,  a  holy  cause — that  of  public  liberty!" 

A  week  later  this  patriot  emptied  the  Treasury,  sold 
his  party  to  the  enemy,  tried  during  a  night  disturbance 
to  overthrow  the  President,  and  fled  to   P^urope. 

To  conclude,  I  give  an  advertisement  of  a  different  kind. 

"  The  undersigned  wishes  to  bring  to  the  notice  of  the 
public  the  fact  that  since  his  return  from  Panama,  now 
almost  six  years  ago,  he  has  not  meddled  with  any  sums 
in  gold  or  silver  belonging  to  an)'  person  whatsoever. 
He  trusts  that  having  said  this  an  impartial  public  will 
meditate    on    the    announcement." — "  Le    Peuple."     (Advt.) 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

THE    IIAYTIAN    PEOPLE    AS    I   KNEW  THEM. 

TiiEV  are  kindly.  They  are  hospitable.  They  are  good- 
hearted.     They  are  a  song-loving  and  a  cheerful  people. 

They  are  ignorant.  They  are  lazy.  They  are  leavened 
with  the  horrors  of  serpent-worship,  and  a  certain,  though 
I  think  a  diminishing,  proportion  of  them  consent  (to  say 
the  least  of  it)  to  human  sacrifice. 

That  is  the  good  and  bad  of  the  Black  Republic  of  the 
West.  In  their  defence,  let  it  be  said  that  they  are  brutally 
misgoverned.  And  by  reason  of  the  secret  influence  of 
the  Papalois  their  worst  faults  and  superstitions  are  kept 
alive  and  pandered  to.  Yet,  in  spite  of  all  these  drawbacks, 
I  have  never  during  all  my  travels  in  the  wild  districts 
asked  for  a  drink  of  water  in  vain.  Small  farmers,  or 
those  who  in  any  other  country  would  answer  to  such  a 
description,    men  who  had  never  seen  me  before,  dwelling 


THE  HAYTIAN  PEOPLE  AS  I  KNEW  THEM.         233 

in  nnor  hnmp-backcu  huts,  have  given  me  a  mattress  and 
what  meagre  food  they  had,  without  ever  expecting  repay- 
ment, and  indeed  they  were  insulted  if  I   offered  it. 

It  is  a  country  of  gigantic  contrasts,  of  no  sort  of  medio- 
crity. The  Haytian  is  either  one  thing  or  the  other,  a 
sort  of  Man  in  the  Moon,  entirely  lacking  in  mental  atmos- 
phere, capable  of  passing  instantaneously  from  intensest 
light  to  blackest  shadow,  from  kindly  hospitality  to  hopeless 
cruelty. 

The  so-called  wild  people  of  the  interior  are  utterly 
maligned.  You  may  chance,  as  I  did,  to  run  up  against 
some  priest-dominated  Vaudoux  worshipper  who  will  try 
to  poison  you  by  means  of  some  obscure  and  potent  drug. 
You  may  witness  orgies  and  sacrifices,  if  you  can  contrive 
to  be  present  and  are  willing  to  take  the  risk.  They  go 
on  all  the  year  round,  although  with  greater  license  at 
certain  periods.  If  you  offend  the  authorities  in  any  out- 
of-the-way  place,  yours  may  not  be  a  very  enviable  fate, 
for  when  the  negro  finds  a  white  man  in  his  power  the 
result,  as  far  as  the  white  man  is  concerned,  becomes 
precisely  what  the  negro's  whim  may  make    it. 

Yet  the  rural  Haytian  is  all  that  I  have  said,  for  the 
foreigner  who  gets  into  trouble  amongst  them  has  to  deal, 
not  with  them,  but  with  the  local  authority — that  is,  the 
General  de  la  Place.  He  is  a  black  endowed  with  arbitrary 
powers,  and,  consequently,  is  often  of  swollen  pretensions. 


234  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHLrE. 

He  rules  precisely  as  rules  the  biggest  boy  at  school ;  he 
deals  out  a  rough  and  ready  justice  that  would  be  humo- 
rous were  it  not  terrific.  He  awards  the  penalty  of  death 
with  the  same  lightness  of  heart  that  a  large  boy  bestows 
on  a  smaller  the  harmless  and  necessary  kick.  Yet,  to 
judge  broadly  from  effects,  this  off-hand  system  excellently 
suits  the  character  of  the  people. 

In  the  towns  matters  are  rather  different.  The  town- 
loafer  is  not  deserving  of  much  praise.  The  wharfside 
nigger  steals  with  as  much  frequency  as  he  eats ;  that  is, 
he  seeks  the  chance  all  the  day  and  most  of  the  night. 
When  working  on  a  lighter,  his  favourite  game  is  to  drop 
a  barrel  overboard,  sink  it,  and  fish  it  up  again  in  the 
small  hours.  He  hangs  about  ships  in  his  boat,  picking 
up  every  trifle  he  can  lay  hands  on. 

Occasionally  someone  in  authority  breaks  up  his  foolish 
jackdaw's  hoard,  he  is  arrested  and  clubbed  by  the  police, 
taken  away  to  the  prison  where  no  food  is,  and  there 
chained  to  an  iron  bar.  It  does  him  no  good.  He  is  a 
thief  of  thieves,  and  will  go  on  stealing  until  he  is  dead, 
and  then  probably  some  of  his  friends  will  come  along 
and  steal  the  boots  from  the  corpse.  Above  these  petty 
offenders  are  the  great  Generals,  who  steal  the  soldiers' 
pay;  and,  still  higher,  the  Government,  who  steal  promis- 
cuously from  all  and  everywhere. 

As  to  the  negro's  position  in  the  Government,  there  are 


;.,-**  ^ 'lit-* 


•A;^4<#^    -i«l^« 


=£=^ 


THE  HAYTIAN  PEOPLE  AS  I  KNEW  THEM.        237 

in  the  Cabinet  some  capable  men  of  African  race,  but 
sandwiched  in  amongst  them  are  others  who  are  mere 
caricatures — men  whose  deserved  place,  I  really  do  not 
think  I  am  unjust  or  unfair  in  saying,  ought  to  be  rather 
the  stoke-hole  of  a  steamer.  One  of  the  strongest  tenden- 
cies in  the  Republic  of  to-day  is  the  desire  to  keep  the 
coloured,  as  opposed  to  the  black,  man  from  office  and 
emolument.  There  is  a  rooted  jealousy  between  the  two 
classes,  to  which  is  added  race-hatred. 

If  you  look  into  Haytian  history  you  will  find  cropping  up 
throughout  its  pages  the  record  of  these  fierce  and  sangui- 
nary struggles ;  you  will  find  the  coloured  element  dwindling 
and  continually  growing  smaller  and  less  powerful.  The 
personnel  of  the  present  Government  is  black  enough  to 
delight  the  heart  of  the  most  advanced  negro-phile.  Pre- 
sident Sam  is  of  the  ultra-negro  type,  and  all  the  higher 
posts  around  him  are  filled  with  men  of  his  own  race. 
"Hayti  for  the  Haytians,"  that  war-cry  of  the  people  of 
the  Republic,  means  really  Hayti  for  the  negro — no  mulatto 
need  apply. 

The  people  as  a  whole  will  rarely  consent  to  vote  for 
a  mulatto,  whilst  when  a  negro  enters  the  arena  the  result 
is  a  foregone  conclusion.  It  is  an  every-day  fact  that  the 
masses,  who  would  individually  poison  a  white  man  for  a 
fancied  slight,  or  would  resent  justice  at  the  hands  of  a 
mulatto,    submit    contentedly  to  tyrannical  oppression  from 


238  WHERE  BT-ACK  RULES  WHITE. 

one  of  their  own  colour !  In  the  same  way  a  regiment 
will  cheerfully  watch  one  of  their  comrades  being  clubbed 
into  oblivion  if  the  orders  emanate  from  a  negro  officer, 
whereas  they  would  mutiny  were  a  mulatto  in  command 
to  exercise  a  like  right.  In  this  brotherhood  of  colour  lies 
the  power  of  the  Papaloi. 

One  of  the  points  that  strike  you  most  is  that  Hayti  is 
essentially  a  country  of  extremes  and  contrasts.  Logic  is 
always  at  fault.  A  Haytian's  honesty  is  like  a  Haytian's 
mind ;  it  is  apt  to  surprise  you  round  odd  corners. 

For  example :  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Haytian  dollars 
pass  annually  along  the  lonely  track,  which  is  called  by 
courtesy  a  high  road,  between  Jacmel  and  Port  au-Prince. 
The  men  who  bear  them  are  low-class  Haytians — ragged, 
uncouth,  uneducated,  wild,  and  untutored.  Yet,  in  spite 
of  the  temptations  of  poverty,  only  once  have  the  dollars 
failed  to  arrive. 

This  strange  blend  breeds  theory.  It  is  advanced  that 
the  courier  does  not  steal  because  he  has  no  use  for  the 
money,  because  his  idea  of  wealth  takes  the  form  of  fighting- 
cocks,  and  surplus  roosters  are  not  his  necessity.  I  have 
heard  it  said  that  ten  dollars  would  tempt  his  cupidity, 
whereas  ten  thousand  would  awe  him  into  immaculate 
honesty. 

But  over  and  above  it  all  you  may  safely  put  it  down 
that    within  certain  set  bounds  the  courier's  honesty  burns 


TYPICAL    PEASANTRY. 


THE  HAYTIAN  PEOPLE  AS  I  KNEW  THEM.        241 

in  a  clear  flame.  To  go  back  to  the  story  of  the  one 
exception  who  broke  the  rule.  He  was  a  poor  man,  as  all 
couriers  are,  and  he  was  engaged  to  ride  across  from  Jacmel 
to  Port-au-Prince.  Before  he  started  certain  other  men  came 
to  him  and  put  the  theft  into  his  mind.  Somewhere  on 
the  road  over  the  mountain  he  was  to  transfer  the  thirty 
thousand  dollars  to  them,  then  they  would  clear  off.  To 
induce  the  courier  to  do  this  they  offered  him — what?  Fifty 
dollars  of  the  whole  amount !  His  pay  would  have  been 
about  ten,  so  thus  for  forty  dollars  our  courier  fell  from 
his  high  estate. 

The  story  has  a  pathetic  note  in  it,  especially  as  the 
unfortunate  man  disappeared  into  prison  and  was  heard  of 
no  more.  During  the  last  thirty  years  uncounted  couriers 
have  made  the  desolate  journey  by  the  lonely  riverside 
track  and  over  the  mountain  passes,  each  with  his  load  of 
wealth,  and  the  above  is  the  only  instance  known  of  the 
betrayal  of  trust.     A  fine  record. 

As  to  these  fellows,  to  trust  them  gives  them  the  staff 
of  self-respect.  Yesterday  the  courier  was  a  wandering 
nigger,  a  common  bad-egg  citizen  of  Hayti ;  to-day  he  is 
a  man  entrusted  with  thirty  thousand  dollars.  He  is  not 
the  same.  From  the  chrysalis  of  obscurity  he  has  become 
a  butterfly  in  the  fierce  light  of  trust.  He  lives  for  the 
moment,  to-morrow  he  will  be  nothing  again.  Never  mind. 
For  the   moment  he  finds  honesty  to  hang  with  the  gourds 


242  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

and  the  money-bags  upon  his  saddlebow,  yet  he  is  probably 
a  serpent-worshipper. 

His  self-respect,  unlike  the  self-respect  of  a  white,  is  not 
intrinsic ;  no  man,  indeed,  has  less.  It  is  from  outside  that 
he  gains  it,  and  it  consolidates  him,  stififens  him,  changes 
him  from  a  bad  loafer  into  a  good  servant.  He  girds  on 
a  cutlass  and  sets  forth  singing  a  rude  song,  and  he  sings 
and  smokes,  fords  rivers  and  climbs  mountains  for  many 
hours,  a  Man.  Once  the  strain  is  over,  alas,  he  is  apt  to 
sink  back  into  what  he  was  before. 

A  courier  who  had  brought  thirty  thousand  dollars  from 
Jacmel  across  the  passes  made  them  over  intact  to  their 
consignee,  and  when  leaving  his  office  stole  thirty  cents  and 
a  penknife !  The  thirty  thousand  dollars  were  confided  to 
his  care,  the  thirty  cents  were  a  prey  to  his  enterprise. 

You  must  not  forget  that  the  negro  has  been  for  a  cen- 
tury in  touch  with  white  men  on  the  coast :  in  the  interior 
he  rarely  sees  a  white  face.  Now,  while  on  the  coast  I 
hold  him  to  be  often  a  very  objectionable  person,  in  the 
interior  I  have  accepted  the  hospitality  of  his  roof  and  lived 
with  him,  and,  apart  from  his  natural  laziness  and  his  inclin- 
ation towards  snake-worship,  have  found  him  a  simple  and 
unobtrusive  being.  Yet,  the  moment  he  prospers  his  good 
points  fall  away  from  him ;  he  loses  his  perspective. 

And  here  you  come  to  the  question  of  how  far  the 
Haytian    negro    has  advanced  from  his  initial  .stage  of  sav- 


THE  HAYTIAN  PEOPLE  AS  I  KNEW  THEM.         243 

agery.  The  huts  in  which  he  lives  in  the  interior  are  the 
same  as  those  in  which  his  forefathers  used  to  hve  beside 
the  Congo.  He  dresses  Httle,  but  after  the  age  of  puberty 
rarely  goes  quite  naked.  He  has  few  ambitions.  His  chief 
desire  is  to  be  let  alone.  Moreover,  he  firmly  believes 
that  if  any  white  nation  were  to  take  over  Hayti  he  would 
again  become  a  slave. 

The  negro,  then,  in  Hayti  mostly  turns  his  energies  into 
one  of  three  channels.  He  either  helps  to  govern  the 
country,  is  in  Government  service,  or  does  odd  jobs  for  a 
Hving.  Otherwise  he  lives  behind  the  big  scarred,  purple 
mountains,  trusting  to  the  soil  to  supply  his  wants,  and 
dreaming  away  his  life  in  a  land  where  it  is  always  afternoon. 

Nine-tenths  of  the  population  of  Hayti  are  negroes,  and 
they  form  an  ever-growing  class.  The  tendency  all  over 
the  country  is  to  breed  back  to  the  African  type.  It  is 
a  curious  fact  that  the  negro  hates  the  half-breed,  the 
mulatto,  considerably  more  than  he  hates  the  white  man  ; 
but  the  negress,  when  she  cannot  get  them  white,  prefers 
her  admirers  yellow,  nor  does  this  predilection  on  her  part 
tend  to  lessen  the  loathing  the  man  of  mixed  blood  inspires 
in  the  breast  of  the  black. 

Although  Hayti  is  by  no  means  large,  yet  you  find  in 
different  parts  of  the  island  almost  separate  races,  dissimilar 
in  build  and  features,  and  speaking  distinguishable  variants 
of  Creole  French.     In  the  west  and  around  the  capital  you 


244  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

have  the  descendants  of  the  Mandingo  tribes ;  in  the  Tiburon 
peninsula  the  Congo  negro  predominates.  There  are,  of 
course,  representatives  of  many  other  African  races,  and 
each  of  these  has  had  some  influence  in  modifying  the 
dialect  and  mode  of  life  in  the  particular  part  of  the  Re- 
public which  fortune  may  have  made  his  headquarters. 

In  travelling  through  the  country  one  is  struck  by  the 
sorts,  sizes,  and  shades  to  be  met  with.  Black  has  varia- 
tions of  its  own.  There  is  the  polished,  jet-black  skin 
and  the  dull,  sooty  complexion,  while  a  fine  mahogany 
black-brown  often  accompanies  an  upstanding  figure  and  a 
pleasant  face.  As  in  Africa  itself,  so  here  one  finds  the 
black  man  fashioned  on  widely  different  patterns.  Yet  I 
have  heard  white  men  say  that  the  power  to  distinguish 
one  black  face  from  another  is  the  result  of  time  and 
training, — that  to  the  unaccustomed  eye  all  really  dark 
persons  look  much  alike  1 

In  a  book  of  Haytian  proverbs  a  story  is  told  which 
possesses  at  least  the  seasoning  of  truth  that  is  essential 
to  artistic  success  in  caricature.  A  white  man,  a  mulatto, 
and  a  negro  were  one  day  summoned  into  the  presence 
of  their  Maker,  and  each  was  asked  what  it  was  in  the 
world  that  he  most  desired.  The  white  man  was  prompt, 
he  knew  his  own  mind.  He  wanted  knowledge.  The 
mulatto  desired  beautiful  women.  But  at  first  the  negro 
had    no    answer    to    the    question.      After    some    sheepish 


THE  HAYTIAN  PEOPLE  AS  I  KNEW  THEM.         245 

evasions  he  pleaded  that  he  had  been  brought  there  by 
the  mulatto,  and  that  if  he  really  was  to  be  given  that 
which  he  most  wanted  he  would  like  a  piece  of  gold  lace  1 
After  seeing  a  Haytian  review  you  are  inclined  to  credit 
the  tale. 

Hayti  is  rich  in  proverbs,  most  of  which  turn  on  the 
colour  question.  They  are,  of  course,  in  the  Creole  dialect, 
and  many  are  at  once  humorous  and  mordant,  but  they  do 
not  bear  translating  as  a  rule,  for  a  large  number  deal 
with  conditions  of  life  that  are  local.  Here  is  one,  however, 
which  has  a  general  significance.  "Wood  is  wood,  but 
maple  is  not  mahogany." 

The  greater  part  of  the  trade  of  the  interior  is  in  the 
hands  of  itinerant  Syrian  pedlars,  of  whom  there  are  many 
thousands  in  Hayti.  It  is  strange  to  find  them  in  these 
Western  islands.  They  are  a  race  unspeakable,  living  ten 
in  a  room,  consummate  cheats;  they  are  usurers  and 
parasites  sucking  the  blood  from  the  country  and  in  no 
way  enriching  their  adopted  land  in  return. 

The  Haytians  do  not  like  them,  and  legislate  against 
their  immigration,  yet  they  are  there  in  numbers.  You 
meet  them  in  the  country  districts,  dirty,  under-sized,  well- 
featured  people,  followed  by  a  boy  carrying  their  box  of 
goods.  For  a  long  time  the  Haytians  regarded  this  com- 
paratively fair-skinned  race  as  white  men,  but  they  have 
learned    that   the    Syrian    will    do    anything   for  a  five-cent 


246  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

piece.  I  have  seen  them  take  part  in  a  Vaudoux  sacrifice 
evidently  belonging  to  the  initiated. 

The  Haytian  rarely  marries ;  not  because  he  does  not 
wish  to  do  so— indeed,  it  is  considered  a  highly  distinguished 
thing  to  be  married — but  because  marriage  by  the  rites 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  which  is  supposed  to  be 
the  religion  of  the  State,  costs  about  a  hundred  dollars,  a 
prohibitive  sum  for  the  lower  classes  who  favour  the  looser 
and  less  binding  tie,   which  seems  to  serve  them  very  well. 

Family  life  with  them  appears  to  run  on  smooth  lines. 
You  rarely  hear  of  a  negress  "changing"  her  husband, 
and  the  negro,  owing  to  the  predominant  number  of  the 
opposite  sex,  indulges  himself  in  as  many  wives  as  he  can 
afford.  I  came  across  one  man,  who,  like  Priam,  was  the 
father  of  fifty,  only  the  Haytian's  brood  was  mixed,  and 
not,  as  were  the  Trojan  king's,  all  sons. 

Every  influential  negro  — this  statement  holds  true  of  the 
wild  rural  districts,  at  any  rate — is  a  polygamist.  The 
number  of  his  wives  may  range  from  two  to  fourteen — this 
last  being  the  largest  which  came  under  my  personal  notice. 
If  he  has  money  enough  he  probably  marries  one  of  them, 
and  the  lady  thus  favoured  will  be  thereafter  the  chief  of 
his  harem.  Of  course,  these  peculiar  circumstances  of  life 
are  not  conducive  to  morality. 

In  fact,  the  rural  Haytian  blacks  have  no  sense  of  morality 
in    our    meaning    of  the    term.      Wives  are  to  the  negro  a 


I 


THE  HAYTIAN  PEOPT.E  AS  I  KNEW  THEM.         24Q 

source  of  wealth.  They  work  for  him,  while  he,  with  con- 
stitutional and  ineradicable  laziness,  sits  in  the  shade  of  his 
largest  hut,  and  smokes  a  pipe  with  a  red  clay  bowl  all 
day  long.  Meantime  his  women  and  young  children  work. 
They  will  walk  miles  across  a  lonely  and,  during  the  rainy 
seasons,  almost  impassable  country,  carrying  heavy  loads 
upon  their  heads  to  the  most  favourable  market.  I  say 
advisedly  the  young  children,  for  directly  the  young  buck 
becomes  of  an  age  to  understand  the  dignity  of  his  sex, 
he  joins  his  father  in  lolling  away  the  days,  and  works  no 
more  thenceforward  for  ever.  If  the  patriarch  deigns  to 
go  to  market,  he  goes  mounted  on  a  small  donkey,  while 
his  wives  do  the  journey  afoot. 

And  now  to  turn  to  their  pleasures.  They  dance.  In 
the  capital,  as  in  the  country,  it  is  their  passion.  Never 
are  they  too  tired,  never  can  a  dance  go  on  too  long. 
The  dances  themselves  are  direct  importations  from  the 
West  Coast,  and  cannot  be  described  as  either  graceful  or 
in  any  degree  beautiful.  Their  chief  characteristic  can  be 
readily  guessed  at,  considering  that  the  performers  are  of 
the  negro  race.  As  you  are  riding  through  the  country  at 
night  it  is  quite  a  common  occurrence  to  come  upon  one 
of  these  dances  going  on  within  the  stockade  of  old  wood 
which  surrounds  each  group  of  huts.  A  drum  is  always 
in  the  orchestra,  and  the  sound  of  tom-toms  is  never  absent. 

You    see    the    scene    painted    like    a  picture  in  red  upon 


250  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHriE. 

the  blackness  of  the  night.  Fires  throw  up  great  wings  of 
smoke,  flaming  lamps  set  in  iron  sockets  and  a  torch  or 
two  light  up  the  scene.  The  screams  and  the  writhing 
contortions  of  the  dancers,  the  ring  of  fire,  the  humpbacked 
huts  throwing  their  monstrous  shadows  far  beyond  the 
circle  of  red  light,  the  darkness  of  the  listening  forest — you 
have  a  scene  which  you   are   never  likely  to  forget. 

At  other  times,  riding  through  the  woodlands  in  the 
freshness  of  the  morning  or  the  evening,  you  see  a  solitary 
dancer  posturing  away  grotesquely  under  a  tree  in  some 
green  nook. 

The  Bamboula,  the  Martinique,  the  Vaudoux  are  a  few 
of  the  dance  names.  Sometimes  these  gatherings  centre 
round  a  professional,  who,  clothed  in  a  dress  of  barbaric 
colour,  performs  on  a  dais,  and  any  man  who  likes  may 
offer  himself  as  her  partner.  It  is  common  enough  for  a 
negress,  who  has  walked  twenty  or  perhaps  many  more 
miles  since  dawn,  to  spend  the  hours  of  darkness  dancing 
monotonously  until  day  comes  to  change  the  tints  of  the 
landscape. 

In  the  capital  there  are  four  or  five  dances  in  progress 
every  night.  They  are  attended  by  all  the  lower  classes ; 
soldiers,  boatmen,  police,  coffee-workers — that  is,  porters 
who  carry  bags  of  coffee  for  lading. 

As  for  the  upper  ten  in  the  towns  you  frequently  see  a 
stalwart    Haytian    followed    by    one,    or    it    may   be  several 


THE  HAYTIAN  PEOPLE  AS  I  KNEW  THEA[.         251 

boys  (I  fancy  it  is  cJiic  to  employ  many),  the  first  carrying 
his  walking-stick,  another  a  newly-purchased  packet  of  cigar- 
ettes, and  so  on,  for  to  carry  a  parcel  an  inch  long  would 
bring  a  lasting  stigma  upon  his  pretension  to  fashion. 

Fashion  in  Hayti,  as  elsewhere,  is  all-powerful.  In  its 
name  the  negro  cheerfully  endures  many  a  weariness  of 
the  flesh.  Fashion  compels  its  votaries  to  a  reign  of  black 
frock-coats  in  a  tropical  climate.  F"ashion  it  is,  again,  which 
decides  that  the  "only  wear"  of  the  Haytian  army  on 
high  days  and  holidays  must  be  a  uniform  of  cloth  about 
a  quarter  of  an  inch  in  thickness.  Fashion  drives  every 
man  to  wish  to  become  a  General,  even  though  the  State 
gives  him  no  substantial  means  of  supporting  the  position, 
and,  as  is  the  case  in  every  country  under  the  sun,  rank 
brings  its  own  expenses. 

Among  the  richer  classes  there  is  a  good  deal  of  social 
life.  Balls  frequently  take  place,  and  are  well  attended, 
for  Haytians  high  and  low  love  dancing.  From  what  I  saw, 
however,  I  gathered  that  domestic  bliss  was  more  commonly 
to  be  found  in  the  homes  of  the  poorer  peasantry  than 
among  the  well-to-do  of  the  towns.  As  soon  as  a  man  can 
afford  to  punctuate  his  day  freely  with  "  rhums "  beseems 
to  see  no  special  reason  for  restraint,  and  this  reacts  not 
a  little  upon  his  family  relations. 

Marriage  is  the  privilege  of  the  wealthier  part  of  the 
community,  although  only  a  proportion  avail  themselves  of 


-f 


252  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

it.  This  is  an  omission  upon  which  the  local  Mrs.  Grundy 
looks  with  a  lenient  eye.  And  as  by  Haytian  law  the 
children  of  these  looser  unions  are  regarded  as  legitimate, 
the  parents  lack  the  strongest  inducement  to  legalise  their  ties. 

The  Haytian  politician  forms  a  distinct  section  of  the 
community,  and  cannot  be  dismissed  with  only  a  passing 
mention. 

Take  Paris,  cut  its  comb,  reduce  and  minimise  it  in 
almost  all  directions,  material  as  well  as  intellectual,  let  it 
go  to  rack  and  ruin  for  a  century,  turn  its  whites  into 
blacks  and  its  blacks  into  whites,  the  temperate  sky  above 
it  into  tropical,  scorching  blue,  and  you  would  have  some 
presentment  of  Port-au-Prince.  Haytian  life  bears  stamped 
upon  it  the  likeness  of  France,  and  no  individual  shows  it 
more  palpably  than  the  politician. 

He  is  in  many  ways  a  highly  superior  specimen  of  his 
race.  More  French  than  a  Frenchman,  which  means  just 
too  French,  his  ambitions  are  usually  one  of  twain:  either — if 
he  is  not  one  already  —  he  has  hopes  of  being  a  General, 
or  else  he  desires  to  retire  for  the  close  of  his  life  to  Paris. 

Personally  the  political  gentleman  is  for  this  part  of  the 
world  a  well-dressed  man.  You  meet  him  in  all  public 
places  in  a  black  frock-coat  and  straw  hat.  He  talks  with 
many  gesticulations.  He  brags  with  a  wonderful  fluency. 
When  there  is  no  revolution  going  on,  and  there  has  not 
been    a    real    one    for  eleven  years,  he  is  polite,  theatrical. 


THE  HAYTIAN  PEOPLE  AS  I  KNEW  THEM.         253 

showy  and  kind-hearted.  He  is  ahvays  shaking  hands,  and 
he  is  mostly  a  General. 

One  is  presented.  He  takes  off  his  hat  and  shakes  hands, 
and  you  are  swept  up  into  conversation  in  a  moment.  He 
expects  you  to  drink  with  him ;  indeed,  he  desires  this 
ceremony  so  strenuously  that  it  is  well  in  Hayti  to  be  a 
teetotaler.  He  is  not  reserved,  and  he  dislikes  your  being 
so.  He  is  ready  to  strip  off  the  cloak  of  his  privacy  and 
to  take  you  for  a  stroll  into  his  personal  affairs.  And  yet 
not  quite  inside. 

There  is  always  a  well-defined  line  in  the  confidence 
between  the  white  man  and  the  black,  be  he  of  Asia  or 
of  Africa,  that  is  seldom  over-stepped.  It  is  the  reticence 
of  race  which  has  its  source  in  congenital  differences  which 
are  seldom  bridged,  and  it  is  by  reason  of  these  that  the 
relations  between  them  so  often  fall  short  of  mutual  under- 
standing. 

The  Haytian  wears  a  goatee,  but  his  face  tells  the  tale 
of  his  descent.  He  is  very  touchy,  and  if  he  tries  to  "get 
at"  you  over  any  question,  and  you  listen  quietly  and 
smile,  he  shrinks  back  at  once  and  changes  the  subject. 
He  has  a  horror  of  ridicule,  and  perhaps  some  dim  appre- 
hension of  his  own  lack  of  knowledge. 

He  is  very  hospitable,  and  will  always  play  to  an  audience. 
He  is  excessively  ambitious,  and  will  readily  bow  the  knee 
to  Baal.      He  is  often  brave,  but  fails  in  power  of  continuity 


254  wherp:  black  rules  white. 

of  thought  and  effort.  He  cannot  forego  the  small  praise 
of  to-day  for  the  great  success  of  to-morrow. 

He  does  not  talk  much  of  his  own  country,  unless  you 
get  him  alone,  but  he  will  readily  give  you  his  opinion  of 
every  other  country  under  the  sun,  and  if  you  speak  of 
Paris,  he  will  blossom  out  into  plentiful  and  real  enthusiasm. 
His  views  on  most  subjects  are  catchy,  and  he  never  quite 
forgives  you  for  being  white. 

From  half-past  twelve,  when  the  offices  close  for  lunch, 
until  half-past  two,  when  they  open  again,  you  find  him 
everywhere.  He  sits  in  the  cafes  smoking  a  dark  Havana 
cigarette,  which  does  not  go  out,  but  burns  away  to  ash 
if  you  leave  it.  In  the  cool  of  the  day,  he  rides  outside 
the  town,  still  clad  in  his  frock-coat,  on  a  small  horse  that 
ambles  comfortably.  All  round  Port-au-Prince  are  his 
houses,  and  very  nice  houses  they  are,  broad,  cool,  open, 
tropical,  half-hidden  in  a  luxuriance  of  trees  and  greenery. 

Whether  he  believes  in  the  future  of  his  country  I 
cannot  say,  but  he  is  wordily  and  wildly  attached  to  its 
independence.  He  can  always  tell  you  what  would  be  its 
salvation,  but  each  time  he  will  tell  you  something  different. 
In  his  own  mind,  he  is  often  largely  mixed  up  with  its 
salvation  himself.  He  is  a  red-hot  politician,  and  often 
related  to  a  former  President.  He  is  easy  in  morals,  and 
his  motto  is:  "Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we 
die."     In  religious  matters  he  is  a  tolerant  Roman  Catholic, 


THE  HAYTIAN  PEOPLE  AS  I  KNEW  THEM.         255 

and  if  you  press  him  about  the  present  condition  of  things 
among  the  masses  he  will  shrug  his  shoulders  and  talk  of 
Toussaint  I'Ouverture. 

In  all  ways  he  would  model  himself  upon  his  Parisian 
prototype.  With  his  whole  heart  and  soul  he  admires 
France ;  on  that  one  point  he  is  absolutely  sincere.  More- 
over, he  regards  the  rest  of  the  world  through  French 
eyes.  This  peculiarity  is  encouraged  by  his  newspapers : 
he  has  two  of  them  which  retail  telegrams  and  opinions 
taken  from  French  sources  and  from  no  other.  Nevertheless, 
they  are  to  the  Haytian  the  actual  mirror  of  all  that  is 
passing  between  the  poles. 

He  is  a  warm  partisan,  and  during  the  Spanish-American 
War  he  drank  cocktails  to  the  success  of  Spain,  just  as  he 
drank  them  at  the  time  I  was  in  Hayti  to  the  success  of 
the  Boer.  England  and  America  are  bugbears  to  Hayti. 
Individually,  I  believe,  he  likes  the  Englishman,  but  he 
cordially  hates  England — or,  rather,  that  presentation  of 
John  Bull  with  the  large  and  taloned  hands,  by  the  creation 
and  perpetuation  of  whom  the  French  journalists  have 
striven  to  avenge  all  things  from  Waterloo  to  Fashoda,  or, 
perhaps  one  should  say  to  Dreyfus,  for  whose  existence 
we  are  apparently  held  to  be  responsible. 

A  General,  an  ex-Minister  of  War,  hoped  the  Boers 
would  beat  us.  He  was  asked  why.  Because  he  had 
gathered    from    a    French    print    that    Boers    were    negroes 


256  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

persecuted  by  the  British.  He  was,  however,  open  to 
conviction,  and,  after  the  explanation  was  given,  said 
naively  that  he  thought  all  people  in  Africa  must  be  black  1 
In  what  other  land  could  this  happen  ? 

The  most  blatant  talkers  are  frequently  bewildering  and 
astonishingly  ignorant.  Exception  must  be  made  in  favour 
of  those  who  have  been  educated  in  France. 

The  negro  is,  considering  his  numbers,  most  conspicu- 
ously absent  from  the  middle  class.  He  forms  the  lower, 
and  he  predominates  in  the  governing,  but  from  the  best 
class  of  Haytian  society  he  is  largely  self-excluded.  He  is 
not,  with  some  exceptions,  at  home  there. 

The  best  class  of  Haytian  does  not  touch  politics.  He 
knows  too  well  how  much  there  is  to  lose  and  how  little 
to  gain  under  existing  circumstances.  But,  then,  the  best 
class  of  Haytian  is  often  a  mulatto.  If  you  were  to  pick 
out  the  most  advanced  and  promising  men  in  the  Republic, 
you  would  choose  a  very  small  proportion  of  the  pure 
blacks  among  them. 

In  this  connection  I  asked  a  gentleman  who  knows  as 
much  of  Hayti  as  any  living  man,  if,  after  his  long  residence 
in  the  island,  he  really  considered  the  negro  educated  up 
to — in  fact,  fitted  for — the  task  of  self-government.  He 
replied  that  he  believed  he  could  put  his  hand  on  a  score 
or  two  of  coloured  men,  and  a  few,  very  few,  pure-bred 
negroes    who    were    certainly    capable.     But    when    I  asked 


THE  HAYTIAN  PEOPLE  AS  I  KNEW  THEM.         257 

him  why  such  men  did  not  come  forward  for  the  sake  of 
their  country,  he  shook  his  head. 

"They  are  hopelessly  in  the  minority,"  he  said,  "and 
they  know  it." 

To-day  the  Government  is  centred  in  a  group  of  ultra- 
negro  proclivities,  who  look  with  an  almost  ferocious  sus- 
picion upon  the  small  party  who,  were  they  to  come  to 
power,  might  do  lasting  good.  But  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  unalterable  tradition  of  Hayti  is,  Hayti  for  the 
black  as  distinguished  from  the  mulatto. 

It  has  been  advanced  that  there  must  be  progress,  since 
the  people,  or,  rather,  the  politicians,  "  revolute"  much  less 
frequently  than  they  used  to  do.  How  far  this  improvement 
in  conduct  is  a  sign  of  inward  grace  is  open  to  question. 
The  Haytian  man  of  politics  is  not  quite  a  fool,  and  he 
is  pretty  well  aware  that  there  are  countries  who  might 
not  put  up  with  him  if  events  boiled  over  too  often  es- 
pecially if  they  boiled  over  with  the  accompaniments  of 
bloodshed  which  have  signalised  his  revolutions  in  the  past. 

The  following  open  letter  from  a  political  Haytian  is 
drawn  entirely  from  views  expressed  in  various  pamphlets 
by  Haytian  writers,  and  is  given  in  as  close  a  rendering 
as  possible  of  the  French. 

"  Mon  ami, — Now  that  evil  war  has  ceased  from  the  land, 
and  peace,  the  beautiful,  has  for  some  years  dwelt  amongst 
us,  the  time  has  come  for  us,  the  piously  devoted  sons  of 

17 


258  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

Hayti,  to  be  silent  no  longer,  in  face  of  the  mistakes  and 
deceptions  that  promise  to  ruin  our  country. 

"We  are  credulous,  we  are  well-disposed,  we  believe  in 
the  false  friends  who  run  from  the  ends  of  the  earth  to 
enrich  themselves  at  our  expense.  On  all  sides  promises 
are  lavished  upon  us  and  miracles  of  prosperity  are  pre- 
dicted should  we  yield  to  the  voice  of  the  charmer.  One 
would  exploit  the  treasures  of  timber  in  our  virgin  forests ; 
some  plead  for  concessions  to  begin  mining  operations ; 
others  dream  of  railroads,  canals,  telegraphs,  irrigation  works, 
bridges,  and  lighthouses. 

"They  caress  us,  these  beggars,  for  do  we  not  possess 
to-day  the  wealth  of  Hayti? 

"  But  behind  our  backs  these  perfidious  villains,  what  do 
they  not  say  of  us?  They  call  us  a  "nation  of  monkeys!" 
They  say  we  are  human  crabs,  who  do  not  advance  in 
the  march  of  civilisation,  but  move  always  backwards.  In 
saying  this  they  add  we  must  be  driven  forward — they 
propose  a  foreign  protectorate.  Before  it  is  too  late  let 
us  guard  ourselves  against  these  adventurers,  these  liars. 
Let  us  do  nothing  blindly,  hastily,  in  the  dark,  at  the 
gallop. 

"Listen,  while  I  sound  the  trumpet  of  danger  1 

"  Let  us  not  forget  Poland,  who  confided  herselfto  strangers. 
It  was  they  who  killed  her ! 

"  Let  us  recollect  Egypt. 


W: 


THE  HAYTIAN  PEOPLE  AS  I  KNEW  THEM.         261 

"Fifty  years  ago  to  whom  did  Egypt  belong?  To  the 
Egyptians.  A  singular  fury  to  become  civilised  inflamed 
them.  Fatal  disease !  They  were  promised  prosperity,  they 
gave  concessions  for  canals,  railways,  docks.  Have  they 
benefited  by  these  things?  No  I  All  concessions  have  been 
converted  into  fetters  for  the  once  free  limbs  of  Egypt, 
One  day  she  awoke  to  find  herself  under  the  boots  of 
England.  Formerly  the  Egyptians  were  whipped  and 
oppressed  in  the  name  of  the  Koran,  but  at  least  the 
tyrants  who  despoiled  them  were  of  their  own  blood  and 
born  in  their  midst,  speaking  the  same  language,  professing 
the  same  religion  as  themselves.  Are  they  happier  to-day, 
when  they  are  whipped  in  the  name  of  the  Bible,  when 
British  howitzers  stand  ready  to  blow  into  pieces  those 
patriots  who  raise  a  voice  in  the  defence  of  their  liberties  r 

"Let  us  beware;  let  us  not  imitate  them.  Let  us  avoid 
the  stranger ;  let  us  spurn  his  attentions  1  Hayti  is  a  maiden 
of  generous  proportions.  We  must  not  allow  her  to  give 
herself  in  marriage  save  to  her  own  sons ! 

"  Let  us  take  precautions.  Arm !  Fortify !  Intrench  our- 
selves !  Practise  the  evolutions  of  the  military  1  But  let  us 
be  secret  in  our  preparations.  Then  we  can  answer  the 
stranger  who  calls  us  a  race  of  monkeys  ('  un  peuple  de 
singes ') — with  our  guns !  The  hearts  of  our  people  are 
ready,  they  do  not  want  in  courage. 

"  The  English  are  brave.     We  conquered  the  English. 


262  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

"  The  French  are  a  great  nation.  We  drove  them  into 
the  sea. 

"  The  victorious  Napoleon  himself  sent  his  myrmidons  to 
snatch  back  our  new-bought  liberty.    We  hurled  them  back. 

"For  a  nation  of  monkeys,  it  was  colossal! 

"  We  will  be  wise.  We  will  adopt  to  ourselves  the  doctrine 
of  Monroe,  the  American — Hayti  for  the  Haytians !  Cry 
aloud  the  watchword.  Repulse  in  a  manner  the  most  formal, 
the  most  energetic,  any  interference  of  foreign  nations  in 
the  interior  affairs  of  our  country.  Our  history  contains 
the  illustrious  names  of  Toussaint  L'Ouverture  and  of 
Tiresias  Sam.     We  need  not  despair. 

"The  night  is  dark  about  us,  let  us  wait  for  the  moon, 
the  moon  of  education  and  of  reason  that  soon  must  rise. 
Let  us  take  no  step  in  the  dark.  Let  us  endeavour  to 
make  our  military  organisation  still  more  complete.  They 
laugh  at  our  many  Generals,  those  others.  Have  they  seen 
us  on  parade.?  They  forget  that  we  in  Hayti  are  born 
soldiers.  From  being  a  soldier  those  who  have  training 
advance  easily  to  the  grade  of  General.  They  forget  this 
when  they  smile. 

"  Hayti  for  the  Haytians !  Here  alone  one  can  show  a 
black  face  without  receiving  upon  it  a  buffet.  It  is  the 
corner  of  the  earth  sacred  to  our  rights.  Elsewhere,  in 
Africa,  in  America,  the  black  man  is  governed  by  the 
white.     In  Hayti  alone  the  black  man  governs  himself,  the 


THE  HAYTIAN  PEOPLE  AS  I  KNEW  THEM.         263 

black  is  the  equal  of  the  white.  It  is  here  in  Hayti  that 
we  prove  that  fact.  Here  we  hve  by  right  and  not  by 
tolerance.  In  Hayti  has  been  gained  the  first  foothold  of 
the  doctrine  of  equality  of  nations. 

"  Let  us  sound  the  trumpet ! 

"  It  has  been  said  we  are  incapable  of  guiding  ourselves, 
that  we  cannot  govern,  yet  to  whom  do  we  as  a  nation 
owe  our  liberty?  To  our  forefathers  1  Alone  they  created 
the  Haytian  nation  ;  alone,  without  help  of  any  kind,  they 
paid  in  gold  and  blood  and  the  sweat  of  their  brow  for 
the  right  of  freedom !  They  bought  for  this  small  portion 
of  the  great  African  race  the  right  to  live  in  independence. 
We  do  not  need  foreigners  to  aid  us.  Since  we  were  born 
without  consulting  them,  let  us  live  without  doing  so. 

"But  I  must  tell  you,  my  dear  friend,  of  the  progress  of 
events. 

"On  Sunday  there  was  a  review  on  the  Champ-de-Mars. 
What  a  magnificent  revelation  of  our  national  resources  1 
Uniforms,  horses,  soldiers,  cavalry !  One  dreams  of  it  in 
the  night.  Above  all  things  let  us  remind  our  people  that 
we  are  a  nation  of  soldiers — that  our  very  independence 
is  rooted  in  a  military  struggle  wherein  the  armies  of  Europe 
were  worsted. 

"More  than  that.  Hayti  stands  for  a  symbol  of  liberty. 
Not  the  one-sided  liberty  that  others  scream  about,  but 
the    true    Liberty,   Equality.  Eraternity.  which  equalises  the 


264  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

status  of  the  black  man  and  the  white.  It  may  be  said 
our  republic  is  not  so  large  in  extent  as  that  of  France  or 
of  the  United  States.  On  that  I  offer  no  opinion,  but  I 
maintain  that  our  very  existence  has  a  meaning  altogether 
unique, 

"  But  to  fulfil  our  mission,  we  must  rid  ourselves  of  the 
whites.  They  trade  in  our  coast  towns,  they  suck  the  life- 
blood  of  Hayti.  What  do  they  give  to  us  in  return? 
Nothing  but  absurd  and  impudent  projects  by  which  they 
profess  to  assure  our  national  credit,  to  improve  our  com- 
merce, to  ameliorate  our  material  condition.  We  need 
money,  it  is  true.  We  can  borrow,  but  we  must  refuse 
foreign  aid  in  disturbing  the  funds.  We  have  responsible 
Ministers ;  we  have  the  whole  machinery  of  the  State  to 
depend  upon,  who  will  see  that  all  is  done  for  the  national 
honour,  the  national  good. 

"Up  to  to-day  have  we  not  built  our  towns  alone?  With- 
out the  invidious  help  of  strangers  we  have  conducted 
naval,  military,  and  commercial  operations.  We  have  tilled 
our  own  fields,  we  have  sown,  planted,  and  reaped.  We 
are  a  people  gay,  light-hearted,  kind.  What  do  we  need 
more?  We  have  all  that  produces  happiness.  Rut,  if  we 
would  not  see  these  days  of  pleasure  change,  we  must 
combine  to  keep  out  the  foreigners,  the  men  of  different 
blood,  those,  in  a  word,  who  are  jealous  of  our  prosper- 
ity !     Those    who,    speaking    smooth    things,    are    preparing 


THE  HAYTIAN  PEOPLE  AS  I  KNEW  THEM.         265 

to  rob  us  of  all  1  They  say  we  neglect  the  education  of 
the  masses.  Well,  then,  let  us  build  schools.  They  re- 
proach us  because  we  have  no  railways,  and  few  roads. 
In  answer  let  us  point  to  many  already  surveyed.  They 
tell  us  we  live  in  fine  dreams,  we  content  ourselves 
with  great  projects.  Is  the  fact  of  our  independence  a 
dream  ?    No  1 

"Sons  of  brave  fathers,  awake,  and  be  warned  in  time! 
The  envious  peoples  threaten  us  on  all  sides ;  they  plot 
against  our  liberties,  they  groan  to  enrich  themselves  at 
our  expense !  If  we  would  live,  we  must  be  on  the  watch 
day  and  night.  The  foreigner  is  insidious ;  he  creeps  in 
upon  us.  We  must  load  those  now  amongst  us  with 
taxes;  we  must  push  back  others  who  would  follow  them. 
Let  us  maintain  our  traditions.  Let  each  Haytian  show 
himself  proud  and  of  an  imperious  will.  We  are  conquer- 
ors, we  are  free,  we  do  not  wish  to  fall,  to  degrade  our- 
selves, to  become  valets  and  vassals.     Then  beware ! 

"  And  I  ? — I  hear  you  say  ;  '  Oho,  here  is  a  sly  one,  he 
says  nothing  of  himself  As  for  me,  I  remain  tranquil, 
I  am  calm.  I  advise,  I  sow  the  seed.  Some  day  my 
country  will  be  grateful  to  me.  The  people  will  say, 
'  What  do  we  not  owe  to  Monsieur  le  General ! '  Does 
this  surprise  you,  my  friend?  Already  a  Minister  in  the 
Cabinet,  they  have  now  made  me  a  General  of  the  forces 
of   Ilayti!     A    General    of   Division.     I    am  saluted    in  the 


266  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

streets.     I    have    chosen    a    green    uniform.     I    parade    the 
capital  on  my  horse. 

"  I  have  deserved  it,  you  will  say,  yet  is  my  heart  full 
of  pride.  My  country  has  recognised  her  deliverer.  Others 
have  also  been  made  Generals,  but  that  does  not  affect 
me.  They  are  puffed  up.  But  I,  as  I  have  said,  I  remain 
tranquil,  I  am  calm  always.  Adieu,  my  friend. 
"  Agreez,  etc., 

"GENERAL  MILES  BOBO." 


CHAPTER    XIV. 


HAYTI,   THE   PUFF   BALL. 


What  astonishes  the  traveller  most  in  Hayti  is  that  they 
have  everything  there.  Ask  for  what  you  please,  the  answer 
invariably  is,  "  Yes,  yes,  we  have  it." 

They  possess  everything  that  a  civilised  and  progressive 
nation  can  desire.  Electric  light?  They  proudly  point  to 
plant  on  a  hill-top  outside  the  town.  Until  you  have  had 
some  experience  of  the  people  and  the  land,  you  are  taken 
aback  by  this  galloping  of  events.  Here  is  a  nation  hidden 
away  in  the  depths  of  the  Atlantic,  which  is  not  only 
abreast  of  the  times,  but  ahead  of  many  towns  in  England. 
So  you  say  to  yourself. 

Constitutional  Government?  A  Chamber  of  Deputies, 
elected  by  public  vote,  a  Senate,  and  all  the  elaborate 
paraphernalia  of  the  law ;  they  are  to  be  found  here,  seem- 


268  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

ingly  all  of  them.  Institutions,  churches,  schools,  roads, 
railways,   forts.     What  more  can  you  ask  for? 

On  paper  their  system  is  flawless.  If  one  puts  one's 
trust  in  the  mirage  of  hearsay  the  Haytians  have  all  desir- 
able things,  but  on  nearer  approach  these  pleasant  prospects 
are  apt  to  take  on  another  complexion. 

For  instance,  you  are  standing  in  what  was  once  a  build- 
ing, but  is  now  a  spindle-shanked  ghost  of  its  former  self. 
A  single  man,  nursing  a  broken  leg,  sprawls  on  the  black 
earthen  floor;  a  pile  of  wooden  beds  is  heaped  in  the 
north  corner ;  rain  has  formed  a  pool  in  the  middle  of  the 
room,  crawling  and  spreading  into  an  ever  wider  circle  as 
the  last  shower  drips  from  the  roof.  Some  filthy  sheets 
lie  wound  into  a  sticky  ball  on  two  beds,  one  of  which  is 
overturned.  A  large  iron  washing-tub  stands  in  the  open 
doorway,  and  a  black  woman  sits  on  its  edge,  smoking  a 
red  earthen  pipe. 

Now,  where  are  you  ? 

It  would  be  impossible  to  guess.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
you  are  in  the  Military  Hospital  of  the  second  most  impor- 
tant town  of  Hayti,  a  State-supported  concern,  in  which  the 
soldiers  of  the  Republic  are  supposed  to  be  cured  of  all 
the  ills  of  the  flesh.  No  need  to  linger;  you  have  seen 
all  there  is  to  see.  Besides,  the  place  is  used  occasionally 
for  smallpox  cases  to  die  in. 

This  is  how  I  came  there.     I  had  met  a  General  in  the 


HAYTI,  THE  PUFF  BALL.  269 

street,  a  fine,  big  negro,  resplendent  in  uniform  of  gaudy 
green,  I  had  heard  that  a  soldier  had  met  with  an  acci- 
dent the  night  before.  The  train  of  thought  was  thus 
supplied.  Where  does  this  ideal  country,  which  possesses 
everything,  put  her  maimed  soldiers?  I  was  new  in  the 
land  and  curious.  It  is  easy  to  ask  a  question.  I  asked 
it.  My  friend  in  gold  lace  waved  his  hand  towards  the 
building  I  have  described  — from  where  we  stood,  a  blot  in 
the  distance — and  said,  "To  the  Military  Hospital!"  For 
the  moment  I  was  properly  impressed.  "Lucky  people!" 
I  thought  to  myself;  "  everything  is  arranged  for  you  by 
a  paternal  Government."  But  when  you  get  to  the  spot 
the  illusion  fades. 

It  is  the  same  with  the  electric  light.  The  plant  is  here, 
but  it  does  not  act. 

It  is  the  same  with  the  cannon.  They  are  cannon,  but 
they  won't  go  off.  It  is  the  same  with  their  railways. 
They  are  being  "hurried  forward,"  but  they  never  progress. 
It  is  the  same  with  everything.  Everything  is  arranged. 
Everything  is  drafted  upon  paper.  It  seems  as  if,  with  a 
people  so  hedged  in,  nothing  could  go  wrong.  They  simply 
cannot  get  off  the  paths  of  progress.  And  yet,  and  yet — 
they  have  begun  everything — and  dropped  it.  Then  the 
prisons.  I  have  read  a  notable  code  of  rules  referring  to  them, 
drawn  up  with  a  view  to  their  proper  maintenance.  Under 
this    system,    you    say    again,    nothing  can  go  wrong.     On 


270  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

reading  it  you  picture  a  model  house  of  detention,  ruled 
wisely  by  grave  officials  with  one  eye  on  the  regulations 
and  the  other  on  the  welfare  of  their  prisoners. 

Go  to  the  prison.  Obtain  admission  if  you  can.  The 
grave  officials  of  your  fancy  are  replaced  by  a  dozen  trucu- 
lent vagabonds  with  cocomacaque  clubs.  The  place  is  the 
haunt  of  disease,  blow-flies,  and  vermin.  A  pestiferous 
swamp,  surrounded  by  ramshackle  walls,  is  inhabited  by 
the  starving,  naked  prisoners.  You  will  be  lucky  if  you 
do  not  bring  away  with  you  smallpox  or  some  kindred 
evil  as  a  memento.  The  code  of  regulations  is  for  show, 
the  prison  is  for  use. 

But  while  I  am  on  the  subject  of  prisons,  let  us  thresh 
it  out.  If  all  the  realists  of  all  the  nations  could  be  formed 
into  one  realist,  and  all  their  powers  of  describing  the 
disgusting  could  be  delegated  to  that  one  chosen  individual, 
he  might  write  an  account  of  the  Haytian  prisons  and 
never  take  the  imagination  of  his  readers  within  miles  of 
the  reality. 

Four  hundred  men  in  two  enclosed  yards,  stale  and  foul 
with  years  of  use.  Access  is  gained  to  the  interior  by  a 
gate  of  iron  bars.  Inside,  a  swelter  of  filth,  green  scum, 
diseased  bodies,  nakedness,  and  red,  raw  wounds  (the 
warders  keep  up  the  supply  of  these  last  with  their  clubs). 
That  is  what  you  will  see. 

It  is  horrible,  yet  it  is  pale  to  the  reality.     Let  us  leave 


HAYTI,  THE  PUFF  BALL.  271 

the  subject  for  ever.  I  should  never  have  entered  upon  it 
save  for  the  hope  that  when  this  description  comes  to  be 
read  in  Hayti,   it  may  stir  up  prison  reform. 

As  for  the  Government  it  is  nominally  Republican,  but 
under  existing  conditions  supreme  power  is  practically  con- 
centrated in  the  hands  of  one  man,  who  keeps  the  laws 
or  breaks  them  according  to  whim  or  expediency.  If  you 
come  to  think  of  it,  the  difficulties  of  governing  on  the 
Republican  system  are  almost  insuperable  with  high  offici- 
als, many  of  whom  can  neither  read  nor  write,  and  whose 
main  idea  is  to  fill  their  pockets,  and  eventually  to  succeed 
to  the  headship  of  the  State  by  the  rawest  methods  of 
revolution.  It  is  therefore  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the 
regime  has  developed  into  a  military  despotism. 

The  machinery  of  constitutional  government  is  complete ; 
there  are  Ministers,  a  Senate,  and  a  Chamber  of  Deputies. 
But  these  bodies  have  little  independent  power,  and  are 
expected  to  carry  out  the  wishes  of  the  President.  If  they 
do  not,  the  head  of  the  State  promptly  suppresses  all 
symptoms  of  disobedience ;  otherwise  there  ensues  a  revo- 
lution. Perhaps,  as  matters  stands,  personal  rule  is  inevit- 
able, besides  being  the  form  most  popular  with  the 
masses. 

Supreme  power  incorporated  in  a  strong  man  appeals 
to  the  imagination  of  the  ignorant.  The  presidents  of 
Hayti    have  been  not  infrequently  venal,  corrupt,  and  hor- 


272  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

ribly  cruel,  but  the  man  who  knows  how  to  make  his  will 
felt  becomes  for  the  time  the  hero  of  the  people. 

The  surprising  part  of  it  is  that  these  negroes,  who  bear 
with  incredible  wrongs  and  tyrannies  from  their  illiterate 
masters,  would  resent  the  mildest  sway  attempted  by  those 
not  of  their  own  race  and  colour.  The  lowest  of  the 
people  are  as  frantically  opposed  to  annexation  by  a  white 
Power  as  are  the  ruling  classes,  and  this  feeling  is  not  so 
much  love  of  their  insular  independence  as  a  fear  of 
results. 

When  a  negro  gets  an  idea  into  his  head,  it  remains 
there  unalterable  and  unmodified  until  the  day  of  his  death, 
and  it  happens  that  one  of  the  strongest  certainties  in  the 
Haytian's  limited  field  of  knowledge  is  that  if  a  white 
Power  were  to  become  supreme  in  his  country,  he  him- 
self would  be  forced  back  into  slavery. 

It  must  of  course  be  remembered  that  the  Haytian — 
speaking  of  him  in  the  bulk  — has  no  education,  no  inter- 
course with  the  outer  world,  no  means  of  acquiring  any 
information  outside  a  certain  narrow  cast-iron  set  of  opini- 
ons which  have  been  handed  down  to  him  from  his  fathers, 
and  which  it  is  to  the  interest  of  the  Government  to  keep 
inviolate. 

I  have  before  described  the  network  of  generals  which 
governs  the  country,  so  there  is  no  need  for  repetition. 
In    a    sentence,    Hayti    is   governed    by    about    a  thousand 


\ 


HAYTI,  THE  PUFF  BALL.  273 

generals,  and  as  its  area  is  approximately  10,000  square 
miles,  it  is  difficult  to  get  very  far  from  the  founts  of 
power. 

The  members  of  the  Government  live  in  some  state. 
One  of  the  highest  and  most  powerful  Ministers,  however, 
received  me  most  haughtily  at  a  desk  set  in  his  bedroom. 

The  State  offices  are  crowded  with  clerks.  When  I 
went  to  beg  an  audience  of  the  President,  the  office  of  the 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  an  able  man,  was  packed  with 
secretaries,  generals,  and  minor  officials,  who  appeared  to 
have  nothing  to  do  but  to  smoke  cigarettes. 

The  daily  life  of  the  President,  General  Tiresias  Augus- 
tin  Simon  Sam,  seems  to  be  chiefly  passed  in  playing 
draughts  near  the  window  of  a  room  opening  upon  a  bal- 
cony which  overlooks  the  Champ-de-Mars.  Sometimes  he 
drives  in  the  streets  attended  by  a  numerous  suite.  During 
the  time  I  spent  in  Port-au-Prince  I  saw  him  in  all  four 
times.  On  the  whole,  I  cannot  think  his  office  an  envi- 
able one. 

"Uneasy  lies  the  head  that  wears  a  crown,"  but  I  would 
sooner  take  the  risk  of  any  crown  than  be  President  of 
Hayti.     Precedent  is  so  cheerless,  as  the  following  list  shows. 

Emperor  Dessalines Assassinated. 

President  Petion  (Soutliern  Hayti)    .     Died  of  fever. 
Emperor  Christophe  (Northern  Hayti)     Suicide. 

President  Boyer Exiled. 

President  Herard Deposed  after  four  months. 

18 


274  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

Emperor  Sovilouque Fled. 

President  Geffi-ard Fled  to  Jamaica 

President  Salnave Shot. 

President  Nissage-Saget Abdicated  hurriedly. 

President  Domingue Fled  wounded. 

President  Boisrond  Canal    ....  Abdicated. 

President  Salomon Abdicated  and  fled  to  Cuba. 

President  Legitime Fled  to  New  York. 

President  Hippolyte Died  as  President! 

President  Sam Present  head  of  the  Republic. 

There  were  also  some  others  whose  day  of  power  was 
so  brief,  that  I  have  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  include 
them. 

But  there  is  one  thing  common  to  the  whole  country, 
of  which  every  Haytian  denies  the  existence.  Vaudoux  is 
the  one  thing  which  they  declare  they  have  not.  They 
tell  you  there  is  no  snake-worship  (I  am  speaking  of  the 
higher  classes)  within  the  bounds  of  the  Repubhc.  But 
when  you  betray  certain  knowledge  of  the  subject,  they 
admit  that  though  sacrifices  and  savage  dances  may  take 
place  in  other  departments,  no  such  things  are  known  in 
that  one  in   which  you  at  the  moment  find  yourself. 

Thus  in  Jacmel  they  told  me  I  should  find  Vaudoux  in 
Port-au-Prince  and  the  Plain  of  Cul-de-Sac.  In  Port-au-Prince, 
as  I  was  actually  returning  from  witnessing  a  sacrifice  within 
the  limits  of  the  town,  I  was  advised  to  go  to  the  Cape, 
where  alone  such  rites  flourished.  And  at  the  Cape  they 
told  me  to  take  ship  for  Jacmel,  for  there  I  would  assuredly 
find  them.     As  a  matter  of  plain  fact,  the  traveller  riding 


HAYTI,  THE  PUFF  BALL.  275 

across  the  country  in  any  direction  is  quite  likely,  to  come 
suddenly  in  view  of  the  ceremonies  in  full  swing.  He  will 
see  the  tell-tale  dances,  the  faces  smeared  in  blood,  perhaps 
even  the  body  of  the  black  goat,  the  sacred  sacrifice. 

Nor  are  they  grotesque  pictures  only ;  the  element  of 
horror  darkens  them  all,  for  wherever  you  hear  the  palpi- 
tating throb  of  the  big  bullock-skin  drum,  and  wherever  the 
votaries  of  Vaudoux  foregather  there  is  always  the  possibility 
that  human  sacrifice  has  been  or  is  to  be  accomplished. 

Oddly  enough,  your  most  prominent  feeling  when  first 
you  look  upon  these  things  leads  you  to  reflect  that  the 
boys'  books  are  all  wrong,  and  so  is  popular  fancy.  In 
both  the  votaries  of  human  sacrifice  parade  it,  as  objection- 
able barbarians  indeed,  but  with  a  savage  picturesqueness 
of  their  own.  Here  in  Hayti  you  have  all  the  elements  of 
the  picturesque,  forests,  red  fires,  blood,  the  flash  of  steel, 
the  red  robes  of  the  priest.  Surely  the  worshippers  will 
be  in  keeping  with  the  rest  of  the  picture  ^  But  they  are 
not.  They  are  neither  very  brave  nor  very  fierce.  They 
are  not  even  barbaric ;  they  are  merely  barbarians. 

It  was  a  disappointment  to  me,  I  admit  it.  I  do  not 
think  in  the  whole  world  you  could  have  found  a  more 
disillusioned  person  than  myself  when  first  I  saw  a  sacrifice 
of  animals  to  the  sacred  snake.  I  had  expected  a  grisly 
crew  of  fanatics,  I  found  a  medley  of  squalid  negroes.  The 
accepted  description  catches  some  of  the  salient  points  and 


276  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

brings  them  vividly  before  your  eyes,  but  it  ignores  the 
meanness  of  it  all  while  it  gives  rein  to  the  picturesque. 
You  get  the  rude  huts  where  the  sacrificers  dwell,  but  you 
are  never  brought  face  to  face  with  the  draggle,  the  foul- 
ness, the  sordid  repulsiveness. 

It  is  moving,  it  is  terrible,  it  is  savage,  it  is  grisly,  we 
know  all  that,  but  it  is  also  cheap,  unsavoury,  eminently 
nasty.  It  is  a  drama  of  realities,  not  played  out  against  a 
background  of  romance,  but  upon  a  rubbish-heap  with  dirty 
straw  in  the  foreground.  And  this  it  is  which  strikes  you 
first  and  leaves  the  lasting  effect  and  impression.  If  the 
realist  would  but  take  a  turn  at  describing  Vaudoux  sacrifice, 
he  would  let  you  have  the  smell,  the  staleness,  the  ugliness, 
the  squint  and  leer  of  it  all. 

So  Vaudoux  flourishes  and  electric  light  fails.  But  you 
are  told  that  the  Government  has  for  some  time  been  taking 
measures  to  suppress  the  one  and  to  set  the  other  on  a 
working  basis.  But  there  is  no  symptom  that  they  are 
advancing  in  either  direction. 

Can  we  not  christen  it  the  pufT-ball  system,  by  which  all 
fair  seeming  ends  in  a  little  explosion  of  dust.^  "Only  this 
and  nothing  more." 


CHAPTER    XV. 

CAN    THE    NEGRO    RULE    HIMSELF? 

Can  the  negro  rule  himself?     Is  he  congenitally  capable  ? 

That  is  a  question  which  has  been  mooted  at  various 
times  and  by  various  writers.  In  nearly  all  cases  the  line 
of  argument  has  been  the  same  The  negro  apologist  has 
selected  some  examples  of  great  men  of  negro  race,  has 
used  them  as  the  foundation  of  his  logical  edifice,  and  in- 
stead of  arguing  from  the  masses  to  the  individual,  has 
reversed  the  order  of  things,  and  has  argued  from  the  in- 
dividual to  the  masses. 

Can  the  negro  rule  himself? 

The  present  condition  of  Hayti  gives  the  best  possible 
answer  to  the  question,  and,  considering  the  experiment 
has  lasted  for  a  century,  perhaps  also  a  conclusive  one. 
For  a  century  the  answer  has  been  working  itself  out 
there  in  flesh  and  blood.     The  negrro  has   had  his  chance, 


278  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

a  fair  field  and  no  favour.  He  has  had  the  most  fertile 
and  beautiful  of  the  Carribbees  for  his  own ;  he  has  had 
the  advantage  of  excellent  French  laws ;  he  inherited  a  made 
country,  with  Cap  Haytien  for  its  Paris,  "  Little  Paris,"  as 
it  was  called.  Here  was  a  wide  land  sown  with  prosperity, 
a  land  of  wood,  water,  towns,  and  plantations,  and  in  the 
midst  of  it  the  Black  Man  was  turned  loose  to  work  out 
his  own  salvation. 

What  has  he  made  of  the  chances  that  were  given  to  him? 

To  begin  with,  we  must  define  the  term  "negro,"  and 
it  is  this  definition  that  we  find  at  the  root  of  so  many 
errors.  The  negro  referred  to  here  is  the  full-blooded 
African,  not  the  man  of  mixed  race,  the  Alexandrian,  the 
Numidian,  the  Moor,  or  the  white  throw-back  who  has  in- 
herited a  dash  of  the  tar-brush.  It  is  possible  by  arguing 
from  the  individual  outwards  to  prove  anything  on  earth. 
This  fact  is  sufficiently  obvious  to  need  no  demonstration. 
And  yet  in  the  whole  history  of  the  Haytian  Republic  there 
is  only  one  instance  which  could  give  any  solid  support  to 
the  pro-negro  line  of  argument —Toussaint  I'Ouverture 

Here  we  certainly  find  a  great  historical  figure.  Born 
a  slave,  his  grandfather,  it  has  been  said,  was  an  African 
prince.  Judging  from  his  pictures,  you  cannot  but  form  the 
opinion  that  Toussaint  was  not  a  pure-blooded  negro;  the 
features,  the  shape  of  the  head,  the  setting  of  the  eyes 
are  all  so  many  strong  reasons  against  such  a  supposition. 


CAN  THE  NEGRO  RULE  HIMSELF?  279 

Among  all  the  leaders  that  jostle  each  other  in  the  story 
of  Haytian  Independence,  his  is  the  only  name  untainted  by 
obloquy,  or  unsmirched  by  the  memory  of  some  foul  and 
savage  massacre. 

In  Toussaint  you  have  a  man  whose  word  was  his  bond, 
whose  acts  of  mercy  are  the  sole  bright  episodes  against 
one  of  the  darkest  backgrounds  of  history.  A  man  really 
sans  peur  et  sans  reproche,  who  was  actuated  throughout 
his  life  by  no  other  feeling  than  that  of  love  for  his 
country.  The  many  tales  of  his  acts  of  generosity,  no  one 
of  which  militated  in  any  degree  against  the  cause  of 
Haytian  liberty,  are  legion. 

Over  against  him  stands  a  far  different  figure,  that  of 
General  Dessalines,  who  spared  no  man  in  his  anger  and 
no  woman  in  his  lust,  who  was  corrupt  and  venal  to  an 
unheard-of  degree.  The  man  who  crystallised  his  political 
tenets  in  the  famous  saying:  "Pluck  the  fowl,  but  take 
care  she  does  not  cry  out,"  a  saying  which  to  this  day  is 
honoured  in  the  observance  throughout  every  department 
of  the  Government.  The  man  who  ordered  a  woman  to 
be  beaten  to  death  at  Les  Cayes  under  the  most  horrible 
circumstances,  and  around  whose  name  each  story  or  legend 
which  has  gathered  merely  adds  one  other  instance  of  his 
cruelty. 

To-day,  in  Hayti,  which  of  these  two  men  is  the  national 
hero.^     It  is  Dessalines. 


28o  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

And  the  act  upon  which  his  fame  chiefly  rests  is  the  bar- 
barous decree  issued  by  him  for  the  massacre  of  every 
living  French  soul,  man,  woman  and  child.  From  Toussaint, 
then,  if  he  was  a  negro — and  this  I  do  not  concede  —  an 
argument  might  be  built  up  which  would  be,  at  all  events 
to  some  extent,  a  vindication  of  the  claim  of  the  negro 
race  to  rule  itself.  But  by  their  own  choice  and  their  own 
act  the  Haytian  people  have  chosen  Dessalines  as  their 
national  hero. 

There  is  no  space  here  to  pass  in  review  the  score  or 
so  of  rulers  Hayti  has  known.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  her 
best  President  was  Geffrard,  a  mulatto,  and  that  the  dictator- 
ship of  her  black  Heads  of  State  has  always  been  marked 
by  a  redder  smear  than  usual  upon  the  page  of  history. 
The  better,  the  wiser,  the  more  enlightened  and  less  bru- 
talised  class  has  always  been  composed  of  the  mulattoes, 
and  the  blacks  have  recognised  the  fact,  and  hated  the 
mulatto  element  accordingly. 

But  to  pass  from  the  earlier  days  of  independence  to 
more  recent  times.  We  had  not  long  ago  the  savage  rule 
of  President  Salomon,  a  notorious  sectary  of  snake-worship, 
beneath  whose  iron  hand  the  country  groaned  for  years, 
and  public  executions,  assassinations,  and  robbery  were  the 
order  of  the  day.     And  at  the  present  time? 

To-day  in  Hayti  we  come  to  the  real  crux  of  the  question. 
At  the  end  of  a  hundred  years  of  trial,  how  does  the  black 


CAN  THE  NEGRO  RULE  HLNLSELF?  281 

nmn  govern  himself?  What  progress  has  he  made  ? 
Absolutely  none.  When  he  undertakes  the  task  of  govern- 
ment, he  does  so,  not  with  the  intent  of  promoting  the 
public  weal,  but  for  the  sake  of  filling  his  own  pocket. 
His  motto  is  still,  "Pluck  the  fowl,  but  take  care  she  does 
not  cry  out  " 

Corruption  has  spread  through  every  portion  and  every 
department  of  the  Government.  Almost  all  the  ills  of  the 
country  may  be  traced  to  their  source  in  the  tyranny,  the 
ineptitude,  and  the  improbity  of  those  at  the  helm  of  state. 

Port-au-Prince,  the  seat  of  Government,  is  the  cesspool 
of  the  Republic.  The  reason  is  obvious.  The  capital  is 
filled  with  men  who  are  in  the  employ  of  the  Government, 
but  who  are  seldom  paid ;  indeed,  who  are  rather  expected 
to  make  use  of  their  positions  to  pay  themselves,  and  who 
therefore  go  to  make  up  a  class  grasping,  dishonest,  dis- 
contented, and  dangerous.  It  is  not  overstating  the  case 
to  say  that  the  ambitions  of  the  average  Haytian  politician 
on  entering  office  are  not  towards  the  advancement  of  his 
country  or  projects  of  reform ;  his  main  idea  is  to  make 
a  fortune  for  himself  and  to  use  his  power  to  avenge  his 
personal  resentments.  In  the  former  connection  there  is  a 
national  proverb,  wdiich  may  be  rendered  :  "  It  is  no  robbery 
to  rob  the  State." 

The  bond,  therefore,  which  consolidates  a  Government 
is    not    that  the   Ministers  hold  similar  opinions  or  political 


282  WHERE  BLACK  RULES  WHITE. 

convictions;  it  is  one  of  common  interest  in  keeping  the 
ship  of  State  under  way  while  they  help  themselves  as 
liberally  as  possible  from  its  treasure-room.  Suppose  the 
present  Government  fell  to-morrow,  there  is  not  one  member 
of  it  whose  first  impulse  would  not  be  to  put  leagues  of 
sea  between  himself  and  his  native  land. 

Since  the  Black  Republic  arose  out  of  the  ashes  of  the 
French  Revolution,  it  has  been  twice  an  Empire,  and  a 
Republic  for  the  rest  of  the  time — nominally.  But  under 
whatever  category  the  Government  may  for  the  moment 
have  stood,  it  has  always  been  in  reality  a  military  despo- 
tism. It  is  that  to-day,  and  it  is  possible  to  bribe  your 
way  to  almost  anything.  Republicanism  is,  after  all,  a 
perilous  form  of  government  for  a  young  nation,  its  bounds 
are  so  wide  and  it  gives  room  for  the  working  of  mutual 
jealousies  as  well  as  infinite  scope  to  the  ambitions  of  the 
individual.  "  France  a  Republic,  America  a  Republic,  Hayti 
a  Republic,"  so  say  the  Haytians.  The  saying  needs  no 
comment. 

I  have  been  assured,  however,  by  a  European  who  has 
long  resided  in  the  country  that  there  exists  to-day  a  sec- 
tion of  negroes  who  if  they  could  win  their  way  to  power 
would  soon  make  a  beneficial  change  in  the  condition  of 
things.  I  own  that  I  have  seen  but  slight  trace  of  such  a 
class.  Besides,  there  seems  to  be  little  doubt  that  the 
advent  into  the  arena  of  active  politics  of  a  truly  patriotic 


CAN  THE  NEGRO  RULE  HIMSELF?  283 

party  would  be  resented  in  the  most  lively  manner  by  the 
bigoted  populace,  who  would  regard  any  measures  of  re- 
form or  progress  as  indicative  of  a  design  to  sell  them 
into  the  hand  of  the  white,  and  thus  back  under  the  old 
yoke  of  slavery.  This  belief  it  is  the  policy  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  keep  alive  and  active. 

The  lower  classes  have  for  their  idols  black  generals, 
who  can  neither  read  nor  write,  whose  sole  claim  to  notori- 
ety is  their  supernormal  fierceness  and  push.  And  when 
all  is  said  and  done  it  is  on  the  influence  of  these  men 
that  the  safety  and  .stability  of  the  Government  depend. 
They  possess  the  ear  of  the  multitude,  they  are  puffed  up 
with  their  own  importance.  While  they  retain  their  present 
ascendency  there  can  be  no  going  forward  for  the  Republic. 

Their  watchword  is  "  Hayti  for  the  Haytians,"  which, 
being  interpreted,   means  conservatism  to  savagery. 

To  return  then  to  the  question  put  at  the  beginning  of 
this  article. 

"  Les  Amis  des  Noirs ",  who  in  the  days  of  the  French 
Revolution  gave  the  black  man  his  first  hint  of  and  help 
towards  freedom,  have  long  since  passed  away  themselves, 
but  they  set  the  thinking  world  a  colour-problem.  For  a 
century  the  answer  has  been  working  itself  out  in  flesh 
and  blood.  Can  the  negro  rule  himself?  Is  he  congenit- 
ally  capable  ? 

The  non-proven  of  the  Scottish  courts  seems  hardly  strong 


284  WHERE  P3LACK  RULES  WHITE. 

enough  by  way  of  a  reply.  Up  to  date  he  certainly  has 
not  succeeded  in  giving  any  convincing  proof  of  capability, 
has  not  indeed  come  within  measurable  distance  of  success. 
I  think  we  may  go  a  full  step  beyond  the  non-proven. 
We  may  say  that,  taken  en  masse  at  any  rate,  he  has 
shown  no  signs  whatever  which  could  fairly  entitle  him  to 
the  benefit  of  the  doubt  that  has  for  so  long  hung  about 
the  question. 

He  has  had  his  opportunity.  That  opportunity  has  lasted 
for  a  hundred  years  in  a  splendid  land  which  he  found 
ready  prepared  for  him.  Yet  to-day  we  find  him  with  a 
Government  which,  save  in  the  single  point  of  force 
majeure,  has  degenerated  into  a  farce ;  and  as  for  the 
country  itself,  houses  and  plantations  have  disappeared, 
and  where  clearings  once  were  there  is  now  impenetrable 
forest.  Certainly  he  has  existed  through  one  hundred  years 
of  internecine  strife,  but  he  has  never  for  six  consecutive 
months  governed  himself  in  any  accepted  sense  of  the  word. 
Today,  and  as  matters  stand,  he  certainly  cannot  rule  himself. 


FINIS. 


INDEX. 


Alexis,  General,  174. 
Amazan,  General,  i8q. 


Army,   40,    56—64 ;   see   Generals, 

Soldiers. 
Assauei,  Lake,  129. 


Bobo,  General  Miles,  Open  Letter      Boyer,  President,  124,  273. 
of,  257—266.  I   Burton,  Sir  Richard,  77. 


Cannibalism,    75,    79,    88,    93,   168, 

274-  276. 
Cap  Haytien,  78,  169—175. 
Charms,  93. 
Child-stealing,  99. 
Christophe,  Emperor,  173. 

citadel,  185,  189,  192— 

204. 
cruelty,  198,  199,  203 — 

206. 
death,  207,  208. 
palace   of  Sans-Souci, 

190. 
treasure,  188,  189. 


Cock-fight,  118. 
Cocomacaque,  151. 
Coftee,  115,  174,  182. 
Consular  Agents,  211,  212,  215,  218. 
of  Great   Britain,    7,  17, 

55.  177- 
of  Liberia,  226. 
Corruption,    51—54,    221,  224,  271, 

281,  282. 
Cul-de-Sac,  Plain  of,  in  — 122. 
fertility,  in. 
neglect,  115,  116. 
Custom  House,  14,  170,  171. 


Dardignac,  General,  178—180.  I  Dessalines,  General,  2,  273,  279. 

Dancing,  84—87,  132,  249,  250,  251.   ]  Dress,  Haytian,  6,  22,  245,  252. 


286 


Enquirillo,  Lake,  145. 


INDEX. 

E 

I   Execution  at  Jacmel,  11. 


Food,  126,  127. 

Foreigners  in  Hayti,  8,  100,  21c—  224. 

life,  218. 

number,  217. 

treatment   of,   154,  159, 
160,  217,  218,  220,  221. 


Forest,  Life  in  the,  123 — 128. 

riding  in,  129—139. 

rich  in  timber,  139—140. 
France,  see  Haytians. 
Froude,  J.  A.,  44. 
Fundo,  Lake,  139,  140,  144,  145. 


Geffrard,  President,  280. 
Generals,  8,  39-73,  231,  273. 

conversation   with,   64— 

73- 
grades,  43. 
number,  40. 
pay,  41,  52. 
tyranny,  45,  46. 
ubiquity,  39,  40,  43. 
uniform,  60,  64. 


Germany,   Dispute   with,  109,  no, 

212,  215. 
Gilmour,  Captain,  105— no. 
Government,  271,  272. 

tyranny,  45,  155,  233, 

237- 
instability    177,    182, 

273.  274. 
Guides,  Petit  Sans-Nom,  14,  130, 131. 
Petit  Col,  185,  196. 


H 


Haytians,   232—266. 

capability  for  self-govern- 
ment, 46,  235,  256,  271, 
272,  277 — 284. 

dishonesty,  103,  104,  234, 
242. 

honesty,  216,  238,  241. 

hospitality,  121,  126,  232. 

ignorance,  255,  263,  272. 


Haytians,  jealousy  of  foreigners, 
211,  217,  258 — 265,  272. 

laziness,  115— 117,  143, 
249. 

love  of  physic,  125,  162. 

morality,  246,  249. 

relations  to  France,  21, 
63,  72, 160, 172,219,226, 
228,  243,  252,  255,  278. 


INDEX. 


287 


Haytians,  vanity,   67—72,  215,   251, 
262,  264. 
varieties,  243,  244. 
vindictiveness,      89—94, 
164. 


Hereaux,  President,  146. 
Hippolyte,  President,  102,  188,  274. 

Arch  of,  37. 
Hospice    Justinien,   160,   162 — 163. 
Hospital,  Military,  160,  268. 


Jacmel,  2—8. 

hot-bed  of  Vaudoux,  78. 


Jamaica,  Obeah-worship  in,  95,  96. 


Law  Courts,  219 — 224. 


Mamaloi,  75,  76,  83-86,  93,  132. 
Marriage,  167,  246,  251. 
Martial  Law,  28. 
Merisier,  General,  8. 


M 


Millot,  185,  186. 

Minerals,  146. 

Mulatto,  145,  146,  237,  238,  243,  256, 

257,  280. 


N 


Navy,  102— no. 

"Crete-a-Pierrot",  103  —  109. 
"  Dessalines  ",  103. 


Navy,  "Toussaint",  103,  T04. 
Nobility,  44. 


Papaloi,     55,    75,    81,    85,    88-90, 

92—96,  98 — 101,  164. 
Passport,  13. 

Poisoning,  89—93,  97>  98- 
Policemen,  7,  34,  147,  221. 

brutality,  151 — 154,  191. 
pay,  148. 
Politicians,  252—254. 
Port-au-Prince,  21  —  38. 

by  night,  26,  81,  216. 

cafes,  21. 

description,    27,   28^  31.  32. 


Port-au-Prince,  drainage,  25. 

filth,  32-34- 

hotels,  21,22,  25,  27. 

market,  37. 

mosquitoes,  26. 

streets,  31. 
Press,  152,  153,  225—231. 
Prisons,  152,  154,  155,  156,  269,  270. 
in  Port-au-Prince,  156—158. 
in  Cap  Haytien,  158,  159. 
Protestantism,  167. 


288 


Religion,   see  Roman  Catholicism 

and  Vaudoux. 
Review  at  Port-au-Prince,  56—64. 
Revolutions,  102,  i6g,  178—182. 


INDEX. 

R 

Roads,    17 — 20,   116,  122,  129 — 136, 


184—186. 
Roman    Catholicism,   86,  163—168, 
246.   See  Hospice. 


Salomon,  President,  178,  274,  280. 
Sam,  President,  32,  43,  61,  222,  274. 
San  Domingo,  63,  64,  iii,  145,  146. 
Soldiers,  31,  47. 

arms,  51. 

character,  56. 

dishonesty,  53. 

parade,  48. 


Soldiers,  pay,  48,  51,  52. 

recruiting,  54. 

review,  56,  59,  60. 

uniform,  51. 
Soulouque,   Emperor,   44,   63,    273. 
St.  John,    Sir  Spencer,  4,  152—153. 
Syrian  pedlars,  245. 


Thomazeau,  46,  117  —  122. 


Toussaint  TOuverture,  278,  279. 


ft  Vaudoux,  74—101. 
'  cannibalism    and    child- 

sacrifice,   75,    76,    135, 
168,  274,  275,  276. 
dances,  84—87,  132,  135. 
drum,  80. 
fetishes,  86. 
power  in  army,  55. 
priests,     see     jMamaloi, 
Papaloi. 


Vaudoux,  relation  to  Government, 
81. 

relation  to  Roman  Ca- 
tholic Ritual,  86, 
164. 

sacrifices,  76,  81 — 87. 

sects,  76. 

serpent,  77. 

temples,  38,  83. 


Printed  at  the  Motley  Press,  iS,  Kldoti   Street,  E.C. 


